This beautifully simple desert marries pears and chocolate with vanilla ice cream. The name comes from "La belle Hélène", an operetta from Jacques Offenbach and refers to Helen the queen of Sparta (and Troy).

h3. Ingredients (serves 4)

* 2 tins of pear halves (need 8 halves in total) and juice
* 8 vanilla ice cream balls
* 200 g (7 oz) dark chocolate
* 2 tbsp sour cream

h3. Method

# Open tins of pears (that's the hard bit).
# Place two half pears in each of the dish.
# Cut the chocolate in small squares and put them in a small heavy saucepan with 4 spoons of the pear juice.
# Melt the whole over a low heat, stirring non-stop with a wooden spoon until smooth. The chocolate must -not- stick to the pan!
# When the chocolate is ready, quickly put 2 balls of vanilla ice-cream on each pear.
# Add the sour cream to the chocolate and pour it evenly on top of ice-cream in each dish.
# Serve immediately.