Cool, juicy pears, cold ice-cream, hot chocolate sauce and a crunchy garnish – the perfect pudding

It’s always slightly embarrassing to realise that you’ve missed a pop culture reference, even if it’s 162 years old, so I won’t dwell on the fact that until last week I was unaware of the existence of Offenbach’s 1864 operetta about Helen of Troy, La Belle Hélène, after which today’s dish is named. In any case, the great French chef Escoffier was so moved by it, or perhaps by its popularity among Parisian diners, to name this simple dessert of vanilla-scented poached pears topped with hot chocolate sauce after the work’s heroine, played by the comely Hortense Schneider.

Though other homages (he includes no fewer than five dishes with that name in his 1907 Guide Culinaire, none of which involve pears) may, like the music, have faded from public consciousness, this particular pairing, if you’ll forgive the pun, has stood the test of time. As Nigel Slater observes in Tender: Volume 2, “The marriage of pears and chocolate is extraordinary. It is as if they were made for each other.” This, I think, is the duo at its “most sumptuous”.