Luscious & decadent dessert that can be served warm or cold. Poached Pears is a traditional French recipe that was originally developed to consume unattractive-looking fruits with a grainy flesh in a fancier way (kind of zero-waste recipe of old times, wasn’t it? 🙂

Preparation is very easy and can be very quick as well if you eat your pears right away without waiting overnight for pears to soak all the flavors. But waiting is just worth it. This dessert is spectacular as well because it tastes delicious however you serve it – warm or cold, poached in red or white wine, with vanilla cream or by itself… Kind of dessert I like (use whatever you have in the fridge 😀 and don’t hunt for hard-to-find ingredients).

There are not many things that can go wrong preparing this but here are some of my suggestions to master Poached Pears even for the first time:

Pears:

• preferably, choose Anjou or Bosc type –  I tried both and both are great (taste-wise and texture-wise). I went through several articles and many mention not to use one particular kind of pear – Bartlett Pear so try to stay away from it
• make sure that your pears are not overripe because they won’t withstand a longer cooking time, neither overnight wine-soaking and will become mushy and unappealing

Wine:

• use the wine you like to drink – generally, a Cabernet Sauvignon or a Merlot is a good choice. I used Tempranillo

Spices:

• combine what you like as if you were preparing a Mulled Wine. I usually use a cinnamon stick, a cardamom bud, cloves, vanilla, and some orange & lemon zest

Serving:

• you can serve your pears warm or cold. If you prefer serving them warm right after you’re done with cooking, they pair very nicely with warm vanilla sauce. If you prefer cooling them down and letting them soak up the flavors & wine overnight (they’ll become more intense-red as well) than the best pair would be either vanilla ice cream or whipped mascarpone cream

---

INGREDIENTS
(serves 2-4 people)

2 Pears

~ 300ml Red Wine

~ 50ml Orange Juice

2 Tablespoons of Honey (or Brown Sugar)

Lemon Zest from 1/2 Lemon

Orange Zest from 1/2 Orange

1 Cinnamon Stick

2-3 Cloves

2-3 Cardamom Buds

♥

Side

200g Heavy Cream

50g Mascarpone Cheese

1 Tablespoon Honey

1 Teaspoon Vanilla Extract

or

A Scoop of Vanilla Ice-cream

---

METHOD

1. Wash and peel your pears keeping the stalks on. Cut them lengthwise in halves and remove the core where seeds and fibrous part is
2. In a small cooking pot, combine together Red Wine, Orange Juice, Honey, Lemon & Orange Zest, and Spices. Place your pear halves into the liquid, making sure that pears are covered completely (use a smaller pan if needed) and cover the pot with a lid. Start slowly cooking & simmering pears for 15-30 minutes or until the knife goes easily through (cooking time depends on the ripeness of the pears)
3. You can eat them right away once they cool down a bit but for intense-red color and taste let your pears soak in wine overnight in the fridge
4. Serve your cooled-down pears with a side of vanilla ice-cream or whip some mascarpone cheese with heavy cream, honey, and vanilla extract. Cook remaining wine for a couple of minutes to reduce it to a thick syrup and drizzle over the pears and cream. The warm syrup will be incredibly flavorful and somehow tart – beautifully complementing cream & pears

Dobrú chuť,
Lenka