How to make the perfect poires belle Hélène – recipe | Food

It’s always slightly embarrassing to realise that you’ve missed a pop culture reference, even if it’s 162 years old, so I won’t dwell on the fact that until last week I was unaware of the existence of Offenbach’s 1864 operetta about Helen of Troy, La Belle Hélène, after which today’s dish is named. In any case, the great French chef Escoffier was so moved by it, or perhaps by its popularity among Parisian diners, to name this simple dessert of vanilla-scented poached pears topped with hot chocolate sauce after the work’s heroine, played by the comely Hortense Schneider.

Though other homages (he includes no fewer than five dishes with that name in his 1907 Guide Culinaire, none of which involve pears) may, like the music, have faded from public consciousness, this particular pairing, if you’ll forgive the pun, has stood the test of time. As Nigel Slater observes in Tender: Volume 2, “The marriage of pears and chocolate is extraordinary. It is as if they were made for each other.” This, I think, is the duo at its “most sumptuous”.

The pears

Everyone is agreed that, for best results when poaching pears, you need them to be firm. As Nigella Lawson writes in How to Eat, “In fact, it is a positive advantage to use what would in other circumstances seem rebarbatively firm fruit” (extra points if, unlike my spellcheck, you were already familiar with the word “rebarbative”). Squidgy fruit of the kind that runs down your chin will fall apart during cooking; turn those into cake instead.

As far as I can tell from the recipe included in François-Régis Gaudry’s magisterial Let’s Eat France, which claims to have respected “the proportions of the era”, Escoffier poached the fruit in a vanilla syrup, a tradition most versions honour. However, Max Rocha of Cafe Cecilia in London eschews the pod in favour of citrus zest (lemon and orange), rosemary and a stick of cinnamon. (Also, to be fair, Rocha, like Slater, does not claim to be making poires belle helene, but simply poached pears with chocolate sauce). Very nice it is, too, and I would encourage you to experiment, but, out of deference to the dessert’s creator, I’ve stuck with vanilla.

Under-ripe pears tend to be willing recipients of help in the flavour department, so for once I’m in favour of dialling up the sugar, because the pears need to be robust enough to stand up to the intense chocolate sauce. I’ll also be adding the juice of a whole lemon, as Jane Grigson and chef Alain Benech, whose recipe is featured on Delia Smith’s website, suggests. I’ll include the finely grated zest, too; the acidity not only helps the fruit retain its colour, but brings out its perfume as well.

Though everyone uses a slightly different cooking method, from a brief boil (Grigson’s Fruit Book) to keeping the liquid at a very gentle heat throughout (Slater), none proves disastrous; what is key is to keep the pears submerged so they cook evenly (Benech recommends topping them with a cartouche of baking paper, which sounds a faff but really isn’t, especially compared with constantly turning the fruit in the pan once they bob up to the top) and to leave them ever so slightly harder than you’d like them, because they will continue to cook as they cool in the syrup.

Grigson and Slater both halve their pears, which, while it does speed up the cooking time, looks less fun on the plate, which feels a shame – this is definitely a show-off sort of dessert. Do, as Benech suggests, remove a little of the stringy core from the base, however – it’ll make them a lot easier to eat with a modicum of decorum.

The sauce

Without sauce, the dish would just be fruit, which, as I never tire of reminding my mum, is not a proper pudding. That said, Grigson notes that this is a dish that “has had much criticism from some food writers, for the combination of delicate pears with chocolate sauce … the secret lies in taking very little sauce”. She has a point: chocolate, like tomato ketchup, is a flavour bully – let it in, and it tends to take over – so I would suggest moderating things to an artful drip, or allowing your guests to serve themselves at the table. After all, if they overdo it, they only have themselves to blame.

Rocha is the only one to use cocoa powder and water rather than melted chocolate and dairy, which results in an intensely flavoured but thin sauce. Initially, I’m quite taken by the idea; it feels a nice counterpoint to any creamy things you might be serving with your pears, but it does mean serving the pear in a puddle of chocolate sauce, rather than allowing it to drip glossily down from its stem (a sentence I have rewritten more than once), so, in the end, I’ve stuck with the traditional melted chocolate. Grigson and Slater both add black coffee, which feels like overcomplicating things (even though it goes well with chocolate), as does Benech’s dash of poire william and the kirschwasser that’s in Grigson’s box of tricks. By all means pop them in, if you like, especially if your sauce needs thinning down a little, but a dash of vanilla extract and a pinch of salt should be quite sufficient.

Gaudry makes the sauce with milk, Grigson and Slater whipping cream, and Lawson and Benech double cream. The fattier the dairy, of course, the richer and thicker the result – and double cream tends to be easier to get hold of than whipping, which is another point in its favour – but some double cream is so lusciously dense that it forms an unattractive brown lump, rather than the silky stream I’m after. Give it a good stir first, and loosen the finished sauce with a little milk or water, or even liqueur, if necessary. For extra shine, stir in a knob of butter or a spoonful of golden syrup at the end, but with this proportion of chocolate to dairy, you probably won’t need any help in that department. Do serve the sauce warm and the pears cold, though, because much of this dish’s charm lies in contrast.

The dairy

Rocha and Slater, classy chaps that they are, serve the pear and chocolate sauce au naturel, but it’s hard to argue that this isn’t improved by an elegant scoop of vanilla ice-cream (what isn’t?) or a billowing spoonful of Benech’s creme chantilly (cream whipped with sugar and vanilla seeds). Whichever you go for, however, don’t overlook one final contrast. A sprinkling of flaked almonds (Benech) or crystallised violets (Grigson) leaves you with cold ice-cream or cream, cool, juicy pears, hot chocolate sauce and a crunchy garnish. Perfection in a dish.

Perfect poires belle helene

Prep 20 min

Cook 30 min

Serves 4

4 firm, not-too-ripe pears

1 unwaxed lemon

1 vanilla pod

200g white sugar, or golden sugar

¼ tsp salt (optional)

1 tbsp flaked almonds, toasted, or crystallised violets, to serve

4 scoops vanilla ice-cream, or 150ml double or whipping cream, whipped with 1 tbsp caster or icing sugar and ¼ tsp vanilla extract or paste, or the seeds from ½ vanilla pod, to serve

For the sauce

150g dark chocolate

200ml double or whipping cream

Pinch of salt

Milk, or water or liqueur of your choice (optional)

Prepare the pears some hours before you’re intending to eat. Find a wide, fairly deep pan and cut out a circle of greaseproof paper of the same diameter. Fold this in half then in quarters, then in eighths, and cut a small hole in the centre to let out steam.