Tags: Baby Purees Fruit Purees

In Northern California, there’s a coffee shop called Philz. They serve the most amazing coffee. They only do pour-over coffees–you can’t walk in for a mocha or anything fancy like that–which means each cup is freshly ground to order and brewed in a single serving using a cone filter. They serve this one blend called ‘Tantalizing Turkish” that I absolutely love. It’s a dark roast with undertones of cardamom. An absolute treat.

When we moved to Virginia the first time, I missed Philz something fierce. We could order their beans online and have them shipped, but it just wasn’t the same. After being in Virgnia for about a year, I decided it was time to try and replicate that glorious Turkish coffee. I picked up some cardamom seeds, ground them up and put a pinch into my coffee. It was terrible.

I tried several times to nail the recipe, but no matter how many variations I tried, I couldn’t nail the Philz flavor. I gave up. But now I had a whole bottle of cardamom pods and nothing to do with them. They sat in my pantry for months until I eventually forgot about them.

About a year or so later, I was making purees for Liev when I stumbled upon the little jar of cardamom pods. I decided to go online and see what else cardamom could be used for. I learned that cardamom was primarily used in Indian cuisine–curries and such–but could be added to sweet dishes to bring complexity to the dish. I wasn’t convinced. It sounded like a load of fancy-pants foodie talk. But I figured, since I had it in the pantry might as well give it a try. I was pureeing sweet potatoes, apples, pears, and cranberries at the time. I set aside a little of each puree in individual bowls and added just a pinch of cardamom to each bowl. Feeling like a super fancy chef, I tasted each mixture.

The sweet potatoes and cranberries were terrible, but the apple showed promise. Then I got to the pears and a sweet and spicy symphony started playing in my mouth. I felt like Remi from Pixar’s Ratatouille when he tried the “lightning-y mushroom”. It was amazing. I called Adrian over to try it and he licked the bowl clean. Excited with my new discovery, I fed some to Liev and I swear his little eyes rolled back into his head.

Cardamom pears quickly became a household favorite. Even to this day, I still always have a container of cardamom pears in the frridge.

Enjoy!

PEAR + CARDAMOM

• 5 pears
• ½ tsp cardamom

Peel and core your pears. Dice them into even sized chunks.

Place pears in a large sauce pan, cover with water and cook until soft.

Remove pears with a slotted spoon, reserving the cooking liquid. Puree the pears with the cardamom until smooth.

Add the cooking liquid a couple tablespoons at a time until desired consistency is reached.