pear-ginger crisp

     

     I don't actually love ginger.

     I adore the mature complexity of gingerbread and Speculoos cookies. I even enjoyed this fall's trend of pumpkin spice, a flavor combination many bemoaned by the season's end. But I just can't bring myself to enjoy ginger wholeheartedly. There have been too many times in my life where I've accidentally eaten a whole slice of the fresh root in my mom's cooking and gagged, shocked by the sharpness, a burning sensation lingering for the next several bites of dinner. Last year, when I made some candied ginger slices, I put it in a batch of crabapple jelly that neither I nor the rest of my family touched, and it was eventually tossed when I finally cleared out our ridiculously extensive collection of fruit preserves. I have a complicated relationship with such a ubiquitous aromatic.

     Ground ginger is something I've never really had experience with. We always use the fresh bulbs in our house. But I had my mom buy a small tin of it at the grocery store for a pumpkin brown butter Bundt cake I made for Thanksgiving, so there it was, in the drawer of pantry items I jealously guard. I wanted to make apple crisp, but we only had pears, and I'd seen plenty of recipes pairing ginger with pears, so I thought a pear-ginger crisp would be perfectly acceptable for breakfast on a weekday morning.

 
    And it was! The topping, made entirely of ground oats, was substantial and hearty, and the pears were transformed by the oven into silky, buttery sweetness. I only tossed a tiny amount of ginger with the pears, because I was afraid of overpowering my intolerant taste buds, and it was perfect for me. The ginger was in the background, but still present, lending a gentle heat to the otherwise one-dimensional sweetness of pears. If you choose to make this recipe, feel free to amp up the amount of ground ginger.

 
     I'm already thinking about other ways to incorporate ginger into my baking. At the forefront of my mind has been the combination of ginger and...chocolate. Chocolate cookies with crystallized and ground ginger? Chocolate-ginger brownies? Scones with ginger and chocolate chunks? All I know for sure is that this spice wants me to promote it from mere understudy, seemingly tossed carelessly into almost every dish my family makes, to the star of the show.


Pear-Ginger Crisp
Adapted from SparkRecipes
Serves 9 (a 9-inch square or round baking dish)

Ingredients
Filling:
3 medium Bartlett pears, cored and sliced thinly 
1/4 tsp ground ginger
2 tbsp sugar
2 tbsp flour

Topping:
1 cup rolled oats
1 tsp vanilla
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/4 cup brown sugar
2 tbsp butter

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 325 degrees Fahrenheit and butter or spray a 9-inch (square or round) baking dish.
2.  In a large bowl, mix ingredients for filling and place into the dish.
3. In a small bowl, combine oats, cinnamon, and brown sugar. Cut in the butter until crumbly. Mix in vanilla. Sprinkle topping over the pears. 
4. Bake for about 30 minutes, or until pears are soft and topping is golden brown.