The creation & destruction of nothing whatsoever

It would be easy to think that we're all currently in the process of sinking into an alternative reality. There aren't many people on the planet who could claim to that the first four months of 2020 have gone as expected, so for me to write about that being the case for me wouldn't exactly be revolutionary. Though, how many people can say that without mentioning the COVID-19 outbreak? Probably quite a few still. However, I do sincerely get the feeling that the guy calmly throwing up in a public bin at Surrey Quays overground station, just after midnight on New Years Day had no inkling whatsoever about the way non-medical events would contort around him. That potentially feels like an overstatement, but I'm still pretty raw at the moment from the most recent divergence.

A couple of months ago, I was scrolling through a PhD database at my work desk (not unlike my tendency to write for the blog while on the clock). I'm not going to provide the details of the project I found as it will be ongoing for a next few years, but let's just say that it seemed so tailored to my previous work that I had to read it through a few times just to ensure it wasn't a apathy-induced fever dream. It's a very millennial feeling to progress through life taking the roads that seem the best at the time with no clear signposting; well, for the very first time it seemed my lodestar had revealed itself from behind the clouds.

This isn't to say that I was complacent about the process. I spent a long time putting together an application and a proposal for the project, trying to ensure that I covered all bases. Fortunately, on the basis of this application I was granted an interview, which felt to me like an absolutely unreal turn of events. Just a month prior I had been sitting in an office, thinking that it was too soon after my masters degree to even consider taking on any further research, but here I was and it felt so viscerally right. Naturally, I wanted to prepare as much as possible and so I sequestered myself in my old university library the day before to try and ensure that I had anticipated everything. Though obviously nervous, I was also excited for the interview; I don't think anyone needs to be told just how incredible alien that is.

Although I was trying to tell myself not to get too carried away in my own head, I was certainly being pulled by the stream; it was the day of the interview that breached the walls of the dam. Taking the train from London to Cambridge, seeing the skyscrapers and the concrete expanse (which there is a big place in my heart for) transform into open plains of muted green and unalloyed sky set me to ease. It was as if the train was a submarine, allowing me to be submerged in the waters of wishful thinking. If that were the case, the city itself was an anchor into a future that didn't yet exist. My head weakly fought against it, but I couldn't help being taken by how charming and homely it seemed. I even thought about what coffee shops I'd hang out in and where I'd work to support myself. It's all so embarrassing to write, but I'd put myself in an incredibly vulnerable position.

I walked away from the interview feeling as if it had gone well. I'd had the opportunity to say most of what I wanted, and occasionally even managed to speak with some passion about the topic (yes, I surprised myself even). Not that I thought I'd smashed it, so to speak, but I felt reasonably positive. I was cautiously optimistic, though that particular adverb was quickly replaced by something far less responsible. The feeling of heading towards something that made my chest flutter was infectious, nay, it was virulent and I held on to it with every metaphorical limb I had available to me. This was now reckless optimism.

And so went the following month. It's not like I wasn't aware of the possibility that things wouldn't pan out, but that just didn't factor into my visions of the future. When I thought about the interview, I did still think about the ways that it could have been improved, and how the other candidates fared. But when I thought about September, any practically minded considerations just melted away. The coronavirus situation intensified and I dreamed about using the months of social distancing to do the preliminary research; to have something to be contributing towards. All I needed was the confirmation and then I could begin.

The derailment of this runaway train took place a couple of days ago. I was working from home, and taking my hour-long break. Having access to a kitchen during lunch on my working days, I had cooked up a kinda-orzo tomato soup with an egg baked into it. The kind of lunch that you ladle into a bowl, sit back on the sofa and eat without having to say anything at all to the people you choose to share it with. I finished the soup, exhaled and took a moment in the wash of calm that had swept over the room before refreshing my emails. Nestled in my inbox was email to say that my application for the studentship had been unsuccessful.

Past this point, it's hard to know what to say. I was upset, and I still very much am, with the feeling coming in waves rather than as a constant. I was embarrassed, due to expressing a lot of public excitement on the matter, and then having to explain that it just wasn't going to happen. There was a whole lot of numbness, as something that I felt tethered to vanished. Or so it would have, had it ever really been there.

Talking about this is difficult, as can be expected, but I just end up feeling childish. Of course, there will probably be "other opportunities", but finding something that gives me the same pull of certainty seems somewhat implausible. Not to mention the fact that this was a funded position with a stipend (right??), and not having that kind of financial support may make it a lot harder for me to orchestrate this kind of project. Perhaps some people will say that it wasn't meant to be, but that's not really a system that I believe in; maybe I could have done this had I been more convincing, more assured, more articulate. At the end of the day, I'm happy that a project such as this will go ahead, and that someone is able to do it. I will look for other opportunities. But, I still do feel like I'm grieving for something, and knowing the way in which I look back on past events, I get the feeling that I'll always nurture a wistfulness for the project that drifted from me.

Without the plan for pre-research in place, ideas of what to fill the day with are a little more scant. It seems fitting that I spent my afternoon yesterday making a large batch of Vegan Kimchi based on the recipe from the YouTube home-cook and recipe blogger Maangchi (I will post the video in the end notes). Have you come across Maangchi before? Hailing from South Korea, she creates video recipes based on Korean home-cooking and she is such a charm to watch, even for the recipes you have no intention of making. What better to do, as well, with a sudden opening up of time than to watch cooking videos from redoubtable Korean matriarchs?

If you haven't had kimchi before (and I am both upset and excited for you if this is the case), then it is a Korean dish of ancient pedigree consisting of salted and fermented vegetables, the most common being napa cabbage, Korean radish and spring onions. It's spicy, acidic and pungent, crunchy in texture and a perfect accompaniment to a whole host of foods. Why I'm choosing to write about it now, is that I feel like it's a good preparation to have in stock during times of scarcity. Most of the ingredients involved are still available around me at the moment, and it allows you to have a small amount of something nutritious always at hand. This recipe makes a very large amount too.

For lunch, just before writing this, I had a bowl of rice, drizzled with sesame oil and topped with a measure of kimchi. It doesn't heal but it's certainly a balm, if only for around 15 minutes. It's re-assuring to know that it's all there, it's all prepared. I've probably been writing for far too long now, and will go ahead with the recipe. However, lastly, I'd like to sheepishly ask something (sheepish because I know my reader levels are very minimal); have you ever had a similar experience to mine? One where your heart gets so set on something without considering the alternatives, only to be disappointed in the end. Please do let me know, and please do make yourself some kimchi. These are hard times for us all, and I'm sure that we all deserve something nice.

Maangchi's Vegan Kimchi

Preparation time: 2 hours and 30 minutes

Makes: approximately 4 pounds

Ingredients

1.3 kg of napa cabbage (also referred to as Chinese leaf)

9 tbsp of salt

2 tbsp of glutinous rice flour

1 1/3 cup of vegetable stock

1 tbsp and 1 tsp of sugar

9 garlic cloves

1 tsp of peeled ginger

1 medium onion, cut into chunks

1 cup of gochu-garu (Korean hot pepper flakes)

170g of Korean radish (also referred to as Daikon or Mooli), chopped into matchsticks

6 spring onions, chopped diagonally

55g of carrot, chopped into matchsticks

Method

Slice the cabbage into quarters, and slice the core away from each one. Cut the leaves into roughly 1-1.5 inch pieces and transfer into a large bowl.

Add 6 tbsp of salt and one cup of cold water to the bowl. Using your hands (make sure you wash them) gently toss the cabbage in the water and the salt to ensure that everything is evenly distributed. Leave the cabbage to stand for 2 hours, tossing with your hands every half an hour. You will notice the longer the cabbage is salted, the more tender it will feel.

While the cabbage is salting, prepare your vegetables as specified in the ingredient list and make the kimchi paste. Combine the glutinous rice flour and 1 cup of the vegetable stock in a small saucepan and place over a medium high heat. Stir until the mixture begins to thicken and bubble, which will take place after about 2-3 minutes. Add 1 tbsp of the sugar and stir on the heat for a further 2-3 minutes until the mixture becomes somewhat translucent. Remove from the heat and leave to cool.

When the flour paste has cooled add it to a blender or food processor with the remaining 1/3 cup of vegetable stock, 3 tbsp of salt, 1 tsp of sugar, garlic, ginger and onion and blend into a puree. Transfer the puree into a medium bowl, and add the gochu-garu flakes. Mix into the paste and set aside.

Once the cabbage has been salted for the full time, it has to be rinsed off. Rinse the cabbage 3-4 times with cold water to ensure that any excess salt has been washed away and drain well.

Add into a large bowl the drained cabbage, radish, carrot and spring onion. Add the kimchi paste, and mix everything together using your hands - you may wish to wear disposable gloves here, but I've found that it doesn't necessary stain or leave an aroma despite the pungency and colour. Ensure that the vegetables are combined and coated evenly throughout as you fold in the paste.

Now, you should leave the kimchi to ferment. Here I recommend separating out the mixture, fermenting a portion and having a portion that you can eat straight away. It will taste great straight away, but will ferment for as long as you keep it. Store in tightly packed airtight containers. Kimchi never goes off, so it can be kept for as long as you like. It never seems to last very long at my place, however!

Notes & Adjustments

• In the original recipe, Maangchi specifies that you can also add in 85g of buchu (Asian chives) if you have them available to you. As I haven't yet found these and therefore haven't used them, I haven't included them in the main recipe. However, if you for some reason do know somewhere they are available then do feel free to use them!

• Maangchi also has recipes for traditional napa cabbage kimchi (non-vegetarian/vegan due to the use of fish sauce), and an easy kimchi that you may wish to check out too.

• For the vegetable stock, I have used both stock made from a concentrated cube and from Maangchi's own vegetable stock recipe; both work very well. Any homemade stock recipe would be suitable.

• If you can't find glutinous rice flour, then brown rice flour also works well. You might also be able to use cornstarch, but that's just a guess.

And finally, here is the link to the video itself:

You've got a boy at home

At the day of writing, and probably of publishing too, I currently am on day three of working from home. Quite literally, too. While writing this paragraph I am technically on shift right now, however there isn't currently anything in my to-do-list so I thought I'd just dabble for the merest moment into my blog in order to steer my mind towards something more productive, work-wise. Yes, that's clearly what I'm doing; I'll just be writing for a few minutes! It emphatically won't be like that time I wrote almost an entire post while in the office. Did I not tell you about that? Whoops.

I've written previously about how difficult I find it to stay inside indefinitely on my days off of work, so existing within the flat throughout the whole 9-5 period has been a bit of a new experience, and a challenging one to say the least (I know, world's smallest violin). I haven't yet succeeded in following advice to create my ideal "workspace from home"; I've been too wracked with indecision about whether the sofa or the kitchen table makes for a better work station. I haven't yet tried the bed, but I can feel that this would be a bad idea. For those who were wondering, no I don't own a functional desk.

Even so, I have my small methods of getting by. Trying to settle into new modes of working has featured watching eight episodes of the Netflix show Dark while I answer emails, and a short-lived affair with a Spotify playlist entitled Medieval Party. I've also learned how to make an adequate dry cappuccino. As I said, I'm still trying to ease into the whole thing. Knowing that I can take a ten minute break to wash some of the dishes in the sink or to whizz the hoover around quickly is an additional bonus. Gee, I really hope that none of my colleagues end up reading this somehow. If you're reading this from (workplace redacted) please do know that when I say ten minutes I actually mean three, and that "washing dishes" is actually code for chasing up our intake levels. Huh, what's that about corporate integrity?

Another interesting byproduct of the home office (not the capitalised Home Office please do note, I don't have room here to detail their many and diverse byproducts) is the fact that it opens up an hour-long block of time where I have both a kitchen and ingredients at my disposal. Or at least, I currently have ingredients available to me. Let's see how that situation evolves over the the next few weeks. This means that the considerable time I spend in the morning daydreaming about potential recipes can actually be channelled somewhere, rather than floating into the ether. Admittedly, the past two lunch breaks I've had I've just thought UGH and trundled over to the shop two minutes from my doorstep to buy a plain white baguette. Not this time; I had a plan.

Over the weekend, Owen and I realised the hippiest visions of ourselves and visited a comfortingly rustic no-waste store, as well as an extensive fruit and vegetable market. One place was cosily shady, with everything in muted grey and brown tones, the other raucous and alive with the colours of fruits, vegetables and raincoats. To this end, we managed to get ourselves a bowl full of snow peas (I'm calling them this because I hate the way the word "mangetout" feels in my mouth) the volume of a large mixing bowl. An exciting prospect, yes, but it soon hit me that we had never cooked with snow peas in our flat before, and now had about ten (or more?) portions of the harlequin green pods to contend with.

Flash forward to the work-at-home-lunch-break, some of the snow peas had been cooked with but the majority still remained in fridge. It was almost as if they were taunting us, that we couldn't possibly eat all of them. The challenge was on. Looking through the store cupboards for what we had, I came across the half-used pack of dark brown sugar I bought to bake a variety of Smitten Kitchen's Fudgy Chocolate Sheet Cake for friend-of-the-blog Ellen's birthday last Saturday (will detail below, don't you worry). I came up with what I thought was the novel idea to fashion a coating for the snow peas out of some form of proto-caramel, because they aren't the most porous of vegetables. I then promptly remembered that this was not an original idea, and it was actually something I'd already incorporated into a recipe a couple of months ago. Visions of innovative grandeur aside, I ploughed on.

I'm calling this recipe Double Chilli Caramel Snow Peas, but don't fret that you're going to invite the fury of a crimson scaled dragon into your mouth; the "double" just refers to the use of both fresh chilli and chilli flakes. I also love the inherent elemental contradiction between fire and ice it teases at. This has a warming heat to it, certainly, but it's not going to leave you with a heat-seared tongue.

I don't usually like to be prescriptive about hardware, but I'm going to put my foot down here and strongly insist that you use a wok and a spatula that is ideally made from silicone. Usually, I'd try to be flexible but here I have my reasons. The radially sloped gradient of a wok is ideally suited for rapid-moving cooking with hot oil, and a spatula made from softer material will not do damage to your pan from frequent scraping. You do have to be quick with your hands with this recipe to avoid the sugar burning, so I would advise that you have everything prepared and around you to minimise the amount of back-and-forth required. I'm deeply sorry, but as a small mea culpa for my imperious ways I will tell you that I did in fact burn my sugar a little bit and it was still great. In fact, I might even add that the burnt sugar benefited the dish somewhat. Don't interpret this as an endorsement of caramel pyromania, but if you do end up with a darker coating than called for then all is not lost.

As a last note, please don't be put off by the fact that I've called for gochugaru (hot pepper) flakes and chinkiang black rice vinegar in the ingredient lists. This is just what I had around at the time. While these ingredients are very common and inexpensive in Korean and Chinese supermarkets respectively, I appreciate that not everyone has these kind of establishments local to them. As ever, I've specified substitutions below that are just as good!

Double Chilli Caramel Snow Peas

Preparation time: 10 minutes

Cooking time: 5-8 minutes

Serves: 2 people

Ingredients

100g snow peas

2 tsp of gochugaru flakes

1 tbsp of dark brown sugar

1 clove of garlic, crushed and finely chopped

1/2 inch piece of ginger, finely chopped

1 fresh red chilli, cut into thin strips

1 spring onion, finely chopped

1 tbsp vegetable oil

2 tsp chinkiang black rice vinegar

1 tsp sesame oil

1/4 tsp Salt

Heat the vegetable oil in a wok on a high heat and wait until it has come to a very high temperature. While the wok is heating up, make sure you have all of your ingredients to hand around you. Test the temperature of the oil by adding a small amount of garlic or ginger; if the oil sizzles upon contact then it is hot enough.

Add the the ginger, both types of chilli and the sugar all at once and briskly mix with the oil until everything has roughly combined. Add the snow peas and shuffle them around the wok until they have been coated with the oil and the sugar mix. If you feel confident enough, flip the pan a few times to ensure the mixture is evenly distributed.

Once the snow peas are coated, add the salt and the chinkiang vinegar and fry the snow peas on a high heat for about 2-3 minutes, keeping them moving with the spatula at all times. Make sure you scrape down the sides for any bits of sugar that might adhere.

Add the spring onion and the sesame oil and fry for a further 1 minute before taking the wok off of the heat. Once the wok has been taken off of the heat, mix the snow peas around the wok one last time to ensure that they are coated with as much of the mixture as possible.

Serve with white rice or stir into noodles.

Notes & Adjustments

• The chilli caramel works well for snow peas both for their tender sweetness and because they don't require a long amount of cooking time. However, the recipe for the caramel coating would work well for any vegetable that doesn't need to be cooked for very long. I'm thinking asparagus, maybe? Perhaps even some tenderstem broccoli? Imagine the caramel coating caught between the fronds of the florets! Gee, fuck the snow peas (I'm joking, don't fuck the snow peas, they're very honourable).

• If you don't have chinkiang vinegar to hand, then I would use 1 tsp of balsamic vinegar and 1 tsp of soy sauce.

• If you don't have gochugaru chilli flakes then Aleppo pepper flakes are a nearly identical replacement. However, I do realise the redundancy of recommending another specialist item as a substitution so if you don't have either of these then use 1 tsp of regular dried red chilli flakes.

• You could use light brown sugar for this as well if it's what you have in the cupboards; the taste won't be quite as caramel-esque but it will still produce a good coating for your snow peas!

Now, for the moment you've all been waiting for! Yes, it's Ellen's birthday cake! As mentioned before, this came from a Smitten Kitchen recipe which I've linked to above and when you put friend-of-the-blog Ellen and Smitten Kitchen together, you know you're in for a good night.

Isn't it gorgeous?

Although I imagine no explanation is needed for such a creation, I will provide one out of sheer courtesy. Ellen is a swimmer, and she swims in open bodies of water (AKA she is the next Wonder Woman, basically). So we made a cake with the four of us (housemates-of-the-blog) Rebecca and Owen included! I was going to say that you could try to find us, but I then remembered that the photo above is ripped directly from Instagram stories, where everyone is tagged. So, instead just marvel at our collaborative genius.

It exists among us

It seems somewhat strange now to continue this blog unabated. To carry on writing about food at a time when it's availability seems to be in a bit of a delicate position. Since my post last week, the COVID-19 situation has become somewhat more alarming and so, to augment the Taylor Swift refrain, the hoarders gon' hoard-hoard-hoard. I want to re-affirm that this blog isn't going to start crafting "recipes for stockpiling" nor am I going to alter my "cook what you feel" approach as much as is possible. Let's keep it business as usual, wherever we can.

Try as we might, though, the food we make is still shaped by circumstance - which I will continue to jump at the chance to mention, as if it had never been said before. Yesterday evening, I improvised a Pear Brandy Polenta Cake, which does seem like an unlikely thing for me to produce, even regardless of the onerous pandemic cloud on the horizon.

If your eyes incurred a narrowing upon seeing the inclusion of pear brandy then please do know that there is a story behind this; one that involves more than just me purchasing a bottle of pear brandy. Someone I know, let's call them James, was clearing out a storage cupboard at the university they work in. While clearing it out, they happened to come across a bottle of Poire William Eau de Vie, which is essentially brandy made from Williams pear (giving fruit a name makes it sound distinguished, however do note that Williams is the most common non-Asian variety of pear). The bottle then came into the possession of our flat.

Neither I, nor flatmates-of-the-blog Owen and Rebecca are particular connoisseurs of fine alcohols. Most of the time, our interpretation of a fun drinking experience is to get the 3-for-£1 deal of Old Jamaica sodas at Tesco and have a can each with dinner (Owen has ginger beer, Rebecca has cream soda and I have grape soda, for anyone who was interested). With this shared disposition, it wasn't immediately evident what exactly we should do with comparatively highfalutin, 40% proof spirit. In the throes of ignorance, and with a willingness to please our guest of the week (hi, friend-of-the-blog Ellen, we miss you already!) chilled four shot glasses, and walked the road of the straight shot; ironically, for four people who self-identify as different shades of queer.

Let's just say that this experience was primarily defined by retching. Convinced that we had just poured unfiltered ethanol into our yielding gullets, there wasn't a lot of love among us for the astringent liquor. There was the merest remnant of a pear taste concealed within the distillation, but in the same manner that nail polish remover may taste vaguely reminiscent of a pear drop. Given our disgust, and also that pears are a symbol of immortality, there was a compulsion to pour the remains of the bottle from our fifth floor balcony as a libation to the Gods. However, I was not yet ready to concede that this could have some use. Plus, it's pretty difficult to justify libations in a no-waste and increasingly atheistic world.

Fortunately, there was a recipe that I'd had in my head for a while to make, which comes from the blog The Wednesday Chef which is an Apple Cake adapted from Dorie Greenspan's book Around My French Table which is spiked with a shot of dark rum or bourbon, depending on what you have around. I didn't make this recipe, but it put me on the path towards a cake with a simple flavour profile, scented with pear and imbibed with the liquor in question.

My initial idea underwent a couple of adaptations; I reduced the amount of flour I originally planned to use and added in some polenta for a moist graininess. This was just for preference, yet the other amendment arose from necessity. None of the shops around us had any eggs available to buy (or if they did they were prohibitively expensive). Though I'm confused about the effectiveness of eggs for a long-term stockpile, it seemed that they had all been bought up in the ongoing Coronavirus panic. Now, I have to credit Owen and Ellen for heroically stepping in here to help make a cup of apple sauce to replace the eggs I planned on using. Ellen peeled and chopped and Owen stewed while I creamed together my butter and sugar; what a dynamic team we made. On the other side of this decision, I can report that it lended a pretty luscious and mildly perfumed fruitiness to the finished product.

So, what does it say when you can't source a single egg, yet have a £40 bottle of Eau de Vie to hand? Seems very bougie, yet probably sums up the response to the 2020 pandemic in London. At least I can claim that my part in this situation was entirely accidental!

While my recipe below does indeed specify pear brandy as the spirit of choice, that is because it was what I used. However, in good faith I cannot quite bring myself to recommend going out and buying a bottle for the purposes of making this cake, even if it is incredible in it's loveliness. Do not fear, I will suggest alternatives, and hopefully you'll have something around. The worst case scenario is that you leave out the alcohol, and the cake's flavour will be a little bit more straightforward; it will still be very enjoyable, that's a promise! Due to my lack of a drinks cupboard, I'm very reluctant to commit to recipes that call for alcohol - I understand those of a similar position.

One last note - do not be alarmed by the longer-than-average baking time. The texture of this cake is very even. The sides are barely-more cooked than the inside of a cake, and a knife glides through it like the deftest of figure skaters. This requires a lower temperature and a longer cooking time. I promise you, this cake is worth waiting for! On that note, this cake is also even better eaten the morning after it's been baked. Was that an endorsement of eating cake for breakfast? I'll let you decide.

Pear Brandy Polenta Cake

Preparation time: 20 minutes

Cooking time: 70-75 minutes

Ingredients

250g unsalted butter

250g caster sugar

250g of apple sauce

140g of polenta

200g of flour

2 tbsp pear brandy

2-3 Conference pears

2 tsp baking powder

1/4 tsp salt

Method

Preheat your oven to 160 C for gas ovens, or 140 C for fan assisted ovens. Meanwhile, grease a round, deep sided (and spring form, if possible) cake pan, before lining the bottom of the pan with baking parchment.

Cut butter into small cubes and place into a large measuring bowl. Soften the butter, if necessary, before adding sugar to the bowl. Cream the butter and sugar together with a electric or a manual whisk until light and fluffy. When this is done, swap the whisk for a wooden spoon and stir in the apple sauce and the pear brandy until combined thoroughly.

Sift the flour, polenta, salt and baking powder into the mixture and stir until combined. Set the bowl aside for a moment.

Remove the top and the bottom ends from two of the pears and peel them, before cutting into quarters and removing the cores. Thinly slice then into long strips, and arrange them radiating in a circular shape outward from the middle of the cake tin, overlapping each other slightly. If this isn't perfect (mine certainly wasn't) then it will just add to the rustic French farmhouse charm of the bake. If the two pears don't cover the pan completely, use the third as well.

Once the pears have all been arranged, very carefully spoon the cake mixture on top of them. Smooth and level the top of the cake mixture by rotating the pan while scraping the top of the spatula across it, slowly moving inward towards the centre. It's important to make sure that the cake is level, as the cake is baked upside down.

Bake the cake for 70-75 minutes, before removing to cool in the tin for 10 minutes. Very carefully flip the cake out of the tin and on a cooling rack and wait for it to cool completely before cutting into slices and serving.

Notes & Adjustments

• There are quite a few different spirits that could be added to this instead of the pear brandy. Dark rum or bourbon would be good (as specified in the recipe from The Wednesday Chef) however the flavour would domineer more, so reduce this to 1 tbsp.

• You could also opt not to use any alcohol in the cake. If you do this, I would suggest adding 1 tsp of vanilla or almond extract. Alternatively, you could have it without flavourings.

• If you want a slightly nuttier, more versatile taste then opt to replace 70g of polenta with the same quantity of ground almonds.

• Apples can be used instead of pears, but try to use a variety which has a light and not too acidic taste, such as Golden Delicious or Pink Lady.