Rosy Poached Pear and Pistachio Tart

For Thanksgiving, I wanted a do-ahead dessert and I didn't feel like making my traditional apple pie.  I decided on Dorie Greenspan's Rosy Poached Pear Pistachio Tart, which is one of the few that I have not baked in her fabulous book, Baking from My Home to Yours.  What makes this a good recipe is that you can make all the parts of it a couple of days ahead.  However, once it's assembled, you really have to eat it up.

I made the nut tart dough using pistachios.  Yummy!

The pears are peeled and then poached in a mixture of shiraz with lemon zest, orange zest and some sugar.  Boy, did the kitchen smell good!

The cream is made with ground pistachios, nuts, egg yolks, milk and a little butter.  I refrigerated it and then added a little sour cream to thin it out before spreading it into the tart shell.

And finally, getting ready to assemble.

My finished product with decorative caramelized pistachios sprinkled on top.

My tart next to the picture in Dorie's Baking book.

The key to this tart, I think, is that the pears be ripe but not squishy.  I used a variety of pears and the ripe ones were by far the best.

And now I have just 4 recipes to bake in Dorie's book and I will have finished them all!