Margarita Pear Tart

My friend Maria (who makes lovely earrings!) boasted of a pear tart in her oven today, and I wished I were  at her house!  Suddenly, I remembered the bag of too-long-forgotten pears in the fridge.  Well, they were pretty soggy pears, I realized as I examined them.  What to do?  I cut off the bad parts, and looked at her recipe. I then despaired, having no buttermilk for the crust...

Heh...but started to think...

OK, I cheated on the crust.  I had some prepared pie crust in the fridge, and it was fine, and not at all soggy.  I look around at a few different recipes for tarts, considered the ingredients on hand, and thought about what spices might taste fine with pears.  Then I saw the word "roasted" and moved ahead!

Basically, I cored and sliced up the pears thinly, and placed them on a broiler pan, and added about 1/4 teaspoon of ground cloves, 1/4 teaspoon of cinnamon, and grated fresh ginger over the lot.  I put them under the broiler until the edges of the pears were browning, and threatening to turn black.

Meanwhile, I took 2 tablespoons loosely packed brown sugar, a shot of tequila, and the juice of a lime and heated it to dissolve the sugar.  I grated more ginger into the mixture (the kitchen smelled amazing at this point--I thought someone was burning a seasonal candle!), and added a bit of flour for thickening, so I could use the mixture to coat the roasted pears.  And that's what I did next.  All the pears went into the pot, and I stirred it about gently (the pears were pretty delicate by now).  I sprinkled a bit of flour on the crust, and poured in the whole mixture, which was juicy, but not runny.  I turned the edges of the crust over the pears at the edges, leaving the tart mostly open.  Baked at 375 til the edges turn brown--you know--like crust...35 minutes?  More or less?

Pear tart!

Ingredients:

4-5 overripe pears with the bruised and bad bits removed, peeled and cored, sliced thinly
1/4 tsp ground clove
1/4 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp grated fresh ginger
1 slightly short shot of tequila
juice of one lime
2 tbs brown sugar
a tsp of flour+a bit for dusting the crust before adding the pear mixture
more ginger, more clove...maybe a pinch of salt
some kind of crust in some kind of pie tin or tart plate

Yummm.