Cheese with pears. Pears with cheese. Either way, it’s a wonderful pairing. Or pearing. Serve honey-roasted pears (above) with ricotta cream or Gorgonzola dolce. Add sliced red pears to a salad with crumbled Roquefort and toasted walnuts. Sometimes I’ll poach pears in a light Port syrup and then steep them overnight so they soak up that deep ruby color. Pair with any blue cheese you love and you’ll have a gorgeous dessert. Scroll down for all these recipes, but you don’t need a recipe for the easiest finale ever: blue cheese, ripe pears and sweet wine. Hard to top that.

Your local independent cheesemonger will have a favorite blue or two to recommend. But here are a few on my list. They are new, newish or harder to find but worth hunting for now that it’s peak pear season:

Capricorn from Shooting Star Creamery: tangy new California goat blue

The Blue Jay from Deer Creek Cheese: Wisconsin triple-cream with juniper berries

Glacier Penta Creme from Carr Valley Cheese: luscious cream-added blue from Wisconsin

Persillé de Rambouillet: French goat blue, mellow and toasty

Shropshire Blue: British blue for Stilton fans

Withersbrook Blue from Jasper Hill Farm: raw cow’s milk blue steeped in ice cider

Honey-Roasted Pears with Ricotta Cream

The reduced juices from these roasted pears produce a buttery caramel sauce. Adapted from The Cheese Course by Janet Fletcher (Chronicle Books).

¼ cup white wine
2 tablespoons honey
1-1/2 tablespoons unsalted butter, in small pieces
¼ teaspoon coarsely cracked black pepper
2 ripe but firm large pears
½ lemon

Ricotta Cream:

1 cup fresh whole-milk ricotta
1 tablespoon honey or sugar, or to taste
¼ teaspoon vanilla extract
1 tablespoon finely chopped pistachios

Preheat the oven to 400°F. Put the wine, honey, butter and pepper in a shallow nonreactive baking dish, such as a glass or ceramic pie pan. Peel, halve and core the pears. Rub with the lemon half to prevent browning. Put the pear halves, cut side down, in the baking dish. Cover with a round of parchment paper and tuck the edges of the parchment under the liquid to keep the paper in place.

Bake until the pears are just tender when pierced, 15 to 30 minutes, depending on ripeness. They will continue to cook as they cool so don’t overcook.

With a metal spatula, carefully transfer the pears to a platter. Pour the baking juices into a small saucepan and reduce over medium heat to about ¼ cup.

Make the Ricotta Cream: Put the ricotta, honey or sugar and vanilla extract in a food processor and blend until smooth.

Serve the pears warm, not hot, with a drizzle of the baking juices and a dollop of ricotta cream alongside. Garnish with pistachios.

Serves 4

Print Recipe

Port-Glazed Pears with Blue Cheese

After a few hours of resting in their Port poaching syrup, these pears turn a rich garnet color. Adapted from The Cheese Course by Janet Fletcher (Chronicle Books).

1 cup ruby Port
1 cup water
½ cup sugar
4 strips lemon zest
2 ripe but firm pears
1-1/2 to 2 tablespoons lemon juice
6 to 8 ounces blue cheese

In a small saucepan, bring the Port, water, sugar and lemon zest to a boil over medium heat, stirring until the sugar dissolves. While the mixture heats, peel the pears. Add the pears to the simmering liquid, setting them on their sides. Cover with a round of parchment paper that just fits over the pears, tucking it around them. Adjust the heat to maintain a gentle simmer and cook for 15 minutes.

Lift the parchment and turn the pears over in the liquid so they cook evenly. Re-cover and continue cooking until they are just tender when pierced, 10 to 12 more minutes. They will continue to cook as they cool.

Transfer the pears with a slotted spoon to a refrigerator container. Simmer the poaching liquid over medium heat until reduced to ½ cup. Let cool completely, then add the lemon juice. Pour over the pears, cover and refrigerate for at least 8 hours or up to 1 day. Turn the pears in the syrup every few hours so they develop a deep burgundy color all over.

To serve, cut the pears in half lengthwise and core with a melon baller. Put each half on a cutting board, cut side down. Thinly slice lengthwise, leaving the slices attached at the stem end. Gently press on the pear to fan the slices. Put a generous tablespoon of Port syrup on each of 4 dessert plates. With a metal spatula, transfer a pear fan to each plate, placing it over the sauce. Accompany with blue cheese.

Serves 4

Print Recipe

Frisée and Radicchio Salad with Toasted Walnuts, Pears and Blue Cheese

Adapted from Michael Chiarello’s Casual Cooking by Michael Chiarello with Janet Fletcher (Chronicle Books). If you don’t enjoy bitter greens, substitute mixed baby greens. You can also replace the pears with Fuyu persimmons or apples.

Dressing:

1 medium shallot, finely minced
1 tablespoon white wine vinegar, plus more as needed
Kosher or sea salt
2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
1 tablespoon walnut oil (or replace with another tablespoon of olive oil)
Freshly ground black pepper

Salad:

2-ounce chunk of tangy blue cheese
1 /2 large head radicchio, halved again, cored and thinly sliced
2 loosely packed quarts inner leaves of frisée, in bite-size pieces, or other baby lettuces
1 small red pear, ripe but firm, quartered, cored and very thinly shaved lengthwise
½ cup coarsely chopped toasted walnuts, plus a few more for garnish

Make the dressing: Combine the shallot, vinegar and a large pinch of salt in a small bowl and let stand 30 minutes to soften the shallot. Whisk in the oils and several grinds of pepper. Taste and add another splash of vinegar if desired.

Make the salad: About 1 hour before serving, wrap the blue cheese loosely in foil and put it in the freezer.

In a large bowl, combine the radicchio, frisée, shaved pear and walnuts. Add enough dressing to coat the salad lightly and toss gently. Taste for seasoning, then divide the salad among individual plates. Using a rasp grater (such as a Microplane), grate the blue cheese thickly over each salad. Scatter a few more walnuts on top and serve immediately.

Serves 4

Print Recipe