Ginger Pear Pie: A One-Crust Wonder

When a reader of this blog e-mailed me with a ques­tion about my recipe for Jew­ish Chicken Soup — the best med­i­cine I know for what­ever ails body or soul — we had an exchange about the source of that recipe: my esteemed col­league and long­time restau­rant critic for the Globe & Mail, Joanne Kates.

I have long been grate­ful to her for that soup, espe­cially her tip about adding the manda­tory parsnip. It gives del­i­cate sweet­ness that ele­vates that win­ter main­stay from good to sim­ply sublime.

That young male reader of my blog, after dis­cussing the mer­its of adding chicken feet to the actual chicken (feet give thick­ness and a lus­cious, gluti­nous tex­ture along with extra flavour), told me he was about to make a deli­cious dessert from The Joanne Kates Cook­book (my source for the soup and a vin­tage tome pub­lished in 1984) called Gin­ger Pear Pie.

Well, it’s fall, pear sea­son and time to try that recipe. Yes­ter­day I did and it’s a win­ner. My boyfriend Ross, as he was pol­ish­ing off a sec­ond slice, said it reminds him of a Christ­mas cookie. That would be the gin­ger. For me, it has shades of lemon meringue. That would be the lemon. Both of these, com­bined with juicy sweet-and-sour pears (I used Bartlett), make for a divine dessert. I added an extra pear and halved instead of slic­ing them.
Gin­ger Pear Pie

Crust:

1 ¹⁄₂ cups all-purpose flour

¹⁄₂ cup cold but­ter. cubed

Pinch of salt

¹⁄₃ cup iced water

Fill­ing:

¹⁄₂ cup sugar

2 tbsp all-purpose flour

2 tbsp finely grated fresh gin­ger root

¹⁄₄ tsp salt

3 or 4 ripe pears, peeled, sliced or halved

3 tbsp soft butter

2 large eggs, separated

1 tsp grated lemon peel

3 tbsp fresh lemon juice

³⁄₄ cup milk

Add flour, but­ter and salt to large bowl. With wire pas­try cut­ter, cut but­ter into flour until it’s the size of peas. Add water; mix until dough holds together. Gather into ball. Refrig­er­ate, wrapped in plas­tic, about 30 minutes.

Pre­heat oven to 425F.

Roll out dough; use it to line 9-inch/23-cm pie plate.

In small bowl, com­bine ¹⁄₄ cup of the sugar, 1 tbsp of the flour, gin­ger root and salt. Sprin­kle evenly over pie shell. Arrange pears on top.

In medium bowl, cream but­ter with remain­ing sugar and flour until light and smooth. Add egg yolks, lemon peel and juice, and milk. Mix to combine.

Beat egg whites until stiff. Fold into but­ter mix­ture. Pour over pears.

Place in oven; bake 15 min­utes. Reduce heat to 350F; bake 20 to 30 min­utes more or until crust and top of pie are golden brown.

Makes about 8 servings.