Over at Lavender and Lime, Tandy has set a Weekly Food Challenge to cook using citrus fruits. Anyone who pops over to my blog regularly will probably have noticed that I use a lot of oranges in my cooking, particularly salads, so I felt inspired to take part in my first ever challenge!
I´m not sure if you´re allowed to submit two recipes, but I recently put up a post for one of my very favourite salads, Ensalada Cateta, so I´m putting that one forward too!
However, I also thought I´d like to try something different and as I´m in jam making mode this week, I had a little play around with ingredients. After the visit from my friends from the UK last week I had a few limes left over from a Mojito session, so I took it from there.
I love pears, but tend to either eat them as they are, or with cheese, or poached in wine. How about trying a chunky, spicy preserve instead? I could eat it on bread or toast, or serve it, almost like a soft quince jelly with cheese or, finally, as a sweet option drizzled over creamy vanilla ice cream.
In the end I decided to marry the pears with lime juice and fresh ginger, and I have to say I was thrilled with the results. Just a hint of the tang of lime and the warmth of the ginger combined with the fresh taste of the pears. Pears contain a lot of water so I cooked the preserve for about half an hour for the quantities given below on a gentle boil. The final result left me with soft pear chunks which still held their shape and a jelly like syrup.
I used the following:
500g of pears (peeled weight) chopped into small chunks
250g sugar
A piece of fresh ginger (about 3cm in length) peeled and grated
The juice of two limes
For the method I used, please see either my Ruby Jewel Jam recipe or my Summer Cherry Jam recipe. This quantity gave me two medium jars of preserve. I do hope you enjoy it, it has an almost autumnal taste to it – I think it must be the ginger!
Chica Andaluza 
oh divine! And thank you for taking part in the challenge!
Thank you – it was fun to try something new!
That looks wonderful! I love pear with ginger and the lime must make it even better.
I think I´ll go made when I make it again (and I will be making it again!) and put the lime zest in too.
Mmmm this really sounds so good. And as you said, an autumnal feel to it. I would love to serve this with a toasted herb baguette, some cheese and glass of prosecco!
Ooh, that sounds good and I´m particularly liking the glass of prosecco!!
This fruit spread looks wonderful!
Wish I´d made more 😦
I love the combination of pears, lime, and ginger!! Like you, I use citrus fruits a lot. For example, I use lemon instead of using vinegar o salads and it tastes better!!!
Oh those lemons – we planted a lemon tree when we moved into our house and now (finally) 3 yeard later, I can just walk out the door into the garden and pick a lemon!
I always love ginger in things… it makes me desperate to get out the preserving pan!!
Go on…get that pan out!
Oh yum! I just bought two pomelo trees that will live in pots along with my other citrus trees (Meyer lemon, Mexican lime, etc – I love them!). One of the new ones has a fruit bigger than my fist on it already… I’ll keep you posted!
You lucky thing! We have two lemons and an orange, but so far only one of the lemons is delivering! Maybe I should think about getting more?! Looking forward to seeing a post about your citrus trees 🙂
Love this idea!
It´s nearly all gone, it was that good 😦
That is a brilliant flavor combination..thanx for sharing
You are most welcome – it´s all gone now 😦
Ooooh yummy! I can just imagine how delicious this would be with a nice blue cheese on crackers….xx
Love blue cheese, will now have to make some more of this jam to try it out this way 🙂
Thanks for your inspiration recipe ..it looks delicious