red wine poached pear and blue cheese crostinis

simple but elevated apps that you can prep in advance

TOTAL TIME: 30 minutes

SERVES: about 20 pieces

Chef’s knife
Cutting board (not my exact one but very similar)
Small pot
Sheet pan
Pastry brush

For the crostinis

• 1 baguette

• 2 tbsp hazelnut or olive oil

• salt

For the poached pears

• 3 anjou or bosc pears

• 2 cups merlot

• 1/4 cup brown sugar

• 1/2 tsp cinnamon

• 1/4 tsp ground cloves

• peel from 1 orange

For the rest

• ~175 g soft blue cheese

• zest from 1 orange

• 1 tbsp cornstarch

1. Poach your pears. Add 2 cups merlot, 1/4 cup brown sugar, 1/2 tsp cinnamon, 1/4 tsp ground cloves and the peel from 1 orange to a small pot. Bring to a simmer over medium-high heat. Once simmering, add your peeled pears (ideally standing up - see notes below) and top with more wine if they are not fully submerged. Cook for 25 minutes, turning down to medium if it feels like it’s going to bubble over.

2. Make your crostinis. Preheat oven to 375F. Slice baguettes into 1/2 inch rounds. Brush both sides with oil and sprinkle with salt. Bake for 8 minutes until just golden - you want them slightly crisp on the edges, and firm but still somewhat soft in the center. Remove from heat and cool on a wire cooling rack.

3. Make your red wine glaze After the 25 minutes, remove pears from wine and set aside. Remove orange peels and discard. Turn heat to medium-high heat and simmer for 5 minutes. In a small bowl, mix 1 1/2 tbsp cornstarch just with enough water to make a slurry. Add this into your wine and cook for 3 more minutes. Remove from heat and let cool. You may get some small clumps of cornstarch because of the amount used, just give the mixture a really good whisk before serving. You can serve the glaze warm or at room temp.

4. Assemble. Ideally while still slightly warm, place thinly sliced blue cheese on crostinis. Top with sliced pears and orange zest. Right before serving, drizzle with red wine reduction and top with more orange zest. *If you’d like a bit of a sweeter version, drizzle with a bit of honey as well.

Making ahead:

• poach your pears and make your reduction up to 3 days in advance. Store separately in the fridge and bring to room temp before serving.

• make your crostinis slightly ahead of time ( a couple hours max) and slightly undercook them. Let them cool fully before placing in a ziploc bag or container. Reheat them in the oven at around 400F for a few minutes before serving.

• these are great even after sitting out for a few hours since the blue cheese acts as a barrier to prevent the crostinis from getting soggy.

If you’re bringing this somewhere, depending on how much prep you can do once you arrive:

1. Reheat the crostinis and assemble there. Bring the sliced cheese, pears, orange zest and reduction in containers and assemble once you arrive.

2. OR serve crostinis cold and assemble there.

3. OR assemble blue cheese and pears in advance but drizzle the reduction and do the orange zest upon arrival.

4. OR you can definitely assemble fully and these should stay sturdy, the cheese protects the crostini. Just go easy on the reduction, have a bowl of it on the side for people to self assemble.

Poaching the pears: you need to ensure your pears are fully submerged in the liquid or you won’t get the color we’re looking for. Ideally use a small pot and stand them up (I wedged a small metal measuring cup in to ensure they stood up). If you don’t have a pot small enough, rather than wasting a bunch of wine to fill up the pot, you can cook them on their side for 15 minutes, flip and repeat. The red won’t be as deep but it will still be delicious.

The reduction: this makes a LOT of reduction that you surely won’t use. You can keep it in the fridge for up to a week and serve it on desserts. OR before adding your cornstarch, set aside half of the wine liquid and add it to your mulled wine! *be sure to reduce the cornstarch by half too if you do this.

Make it vegan/DF: sub your favorite strong flavored soft dairy-free cheese

Make it gluten-free: serve on firm GF crackers or crostinis.

Anything else? Drop a comment below if you have any questions, and don’t forget to let me know if you make it!