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Trying to improve your diet and eat healthier food is always fun, but sometimes you might struggle with preparing the food due to never having to do it before. We all know and love pears, and most people would typically eat them like an apple. However, learning how to cut a pear can make it a lot easier, and more fun, to add them to your diet.
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Pear Cutting Methods
While pears may be delicious, it can be difficult to know how to cut and prepare them due to their weird shape. Apples are nice and simple because of how spherical they are, yet pears have a very unique shape which can complicate things.
Similar to an apple, pears have a core inside of them that can be very unpleasant to eat. It is perfectly safe to eat, but is hard and has a bad texture. The core can easily be removed, but this is a step that is followed depending on how you are cutting and preparing your pear.
Peeling Pears
While it is not essential, many people will choose to peel pears before eating them. This can be done very easily by two different methods. Each method works just as well, the only difference is that one method requires the use of a knife or a peeler.
Peeling With A Knife Or Peeler
To peel your pear with a knife, you will want to make sure it is a sharp knife. When handling fruit and vegetables, you are more likely to slip up and cut yourself with a dull knife compared to a sharp one. A sharp paring knife is ideal as it is just the right size to be comfortably used. If you have a peeler, this will be even easier for you.
The skin is not very thick so using a peeler should be very easy. Just glide it across the surface of the pear while applying pressure so that the skin gets separated from the flesh. Do this all over until the pear has no remaining skin on it. To peel your pear with a knife, you will want to follow the same concept but hold your knife at an angle similar to that of a peeler. This is a very shallow angle as you are wanting to only cut the skin and not the flesh of the fruit itself.
Peeling A Pear By Hand
While it may sound weird, you can actually peel a pear by hand. Or at least, after some preparation, you can. To do this, you will want to fill a deep pan with enough water to submerge your pear. Heat this water until it is boiling and place your pear in the boiling water for 30 seconds. You can remove the pear with either a slotted spoon, tongs, or a ladle.
Once removed from the boiling water, you will want to transfer the pear into a bowl of ice-cold water. This huge difference in temperature will separate the skin from the flesh, similar to when you blanch tomatoes. After a few seconds of being in the ice water, you can take your pears out by hand and rub them with your fingers. It may take some pressure before you notice it, but the skin will start to easily pull off. If this does not happen, repeat the steps and let your pear stay in the boiling water for 10 extra seconds.
Slice
To cut your pear into nice delicious slices, you will only need a knife and a spoon. You can opt to have the skin on or have your pear peeled for this. Regardless of if you intend to have the skin on or not, you must wash your pear with cold water to get rid of any bacteria that might be on it.
To slice your pear you will first want to cut it into two halves. The pear halves should be cut from the pear vertically so that they go from the thin bit of the pear to the thick bit. Now that they are halved, you can begin to remove the core and calyx that the pear has. At the bottom of each half, you will want to cut a V shape to remove the calyx.
Using the tip of your knife you will also want to pull the stem and string off of the pear. Pull the stem away from the pear so that the string is pulled with it and ripped out. Using either a spoon or melon baller, the only thing you have left to do is to scoop out the core of the pear.
Once the pear is prepared, you can place both pear halves flat side down on a cutting board, and begin to slice them. You can make your pear slices as thick or as thin as you want, depending on what you plan to do with them.
Cube
To cut your pear into even cubes you will want to wash and peel your pear. Once it is washed and peeled, you can grab your knife and begin to cube it.
To do this, you will want to essentially cut as much of the fruit away from the core as possible. This can be done by placing your pear on a cutting board and holding it firmly. Depending on the size of your pear, gently cut vertically as to where you think the core has ended. If you meet any resistance, then you must remove your knife and cut it a bit further outwards.
Once you are left with nothing but the core and a bunch of slices, you can throw the core away. These slices should be placed on a cutting board with the flat side facing down. Cut your slices into even slices going either horizontally or vertically. After you have enough slices, squeeze the fruit together to maintain the initial shape, and rotate it 90 degrees. Now cut the slice again going in the direction that will intersect your previous cuts. Once done, you will have evenly cubed pear slices that you can throw in a fruit salad.
What To Do With Cut pears
Cut pears can easily be one of the best snacks to always fall back on when you do not know what to have. You can eat pears on their own as a quick and easy snack, excluding the pear’s core obviously. Cut pears or sliced pears can also be enjoyed with whipped cream and cinnamon as a slightly sweeter snack.
Another great way to enjoy pears is to have them on toast with warm peanut butter and banana slices. Dipping pears in peanut butter is also a great way to eat them, although it is best to have chunky slices for this. Evenly sized cubes can be sprinkled with brown sugar and cinnamon for a really delicious snack.
Pears can also be paired with other fruits and lemon juice to make a fruit salad filled with nutrition and flavor. Great fruits to add to this are apples, cantaloupe, bananas, and grapes.
