I have written about crostini before. Whenever I have guests over, people enjoy the simplicity of such a simple starter but one thing which people comment upon is the ability to experiment.

Food is, after all, a communal affair. Being able to share and taste different things is one way to help make the evening pass by more smoothly.

I like to offer several platters of different ingredients to let people build their own crostini toppings. One of my favourite options is to combine pear, goat’s cheese and pomegranate seeds into a refreshing series of mouthfuls.

Ingredients

Serves 4 people

• 100 g Pear. Make sure to measure the pear after you’ve peeled it and removed the stem. Your guests may be ravenous, but this isn’t going to fool anyone.
• 100 g Goat’s Cheese (Cream Cheese is a good substitute or any cheese that can be spread)
• 20 g Pomegranate Seeds
• 10 g Ground fennel. I often find fennel in packs is not always ground but a good hammer sorts that out.
• Squeeze of Lemon Juice
• Dash of Olive Oil

Directions

1. Thinly slice the pear. Pears tend to be juicy which means that the fruit is going to slip and slide its way through your fingers until they’re bloody because you’ll be hacking your own thumbs off instead of the fruit. This should not scare your guests; unless they’re vegetarian.
2. Place the pear shavings into a bowl and sprinkle the fennel over it. Mix the ingredients together. Fennel can be a sharp taste so pairing it with the pear (see what I did there?) helps balance things out.
3. Add the lemon juice – this will help prevent the pear from browning. It’s a useful trick as you can then prepare these ingredients in advance. (And by this, I mean earlier that day)
4. Add the oil and mix well.

You can then build the crostini by spreading the cheese on to them to form a base. Be generous with the cheese as it’s going to hold all the other items in place. Shovel some pear shavings on to this and top it all off with some pomegranate seeds to add a touch of vibrant colour.

Bon appetit!