Agneau aux Poires Tapées or Lamb with Dried Pears
I'm saddened by the permanent loss of so many restaurants in the last year. I don't normally cook restaurant-style dishes. I'm too incompetent for that. But occasionally nostalgia gets the better of me and I try to recreate something I've enjoyed. This dish is based (loosely) on one that I ate in a restaurant overlooking a vineyard near Chinon many years ago. I'd just come across poires tapées and I wanted to try anything made with that local speciality. This dish isn't difficult to put together (the sauce and celeriac accompaniment can be prepared in advance) but if you want to get the flavours just right or impress someone special, then there are one or two details here that are worth taking trouble over. I'm not going to attempt to give a scholarly history of the poire tapée because there are plenty of people far better qualified than I to do that. Very briefly, they're pears dried in wood-fired ovens which are then pressed flat and end up deliciou...