Saturday mornings in late October and November means a trip to Riley Park Farmer’s Market in search of seasonal fruits and vegetables. The colours are awesome! With a backdrop of the Coast Mountains and occasionally having received a snowfall, it’s simply gorgeous! I’ve always poached pears in white wine, but decided to change things using red wine. The results were delicious on their own but adding ice-cream or a dollop of mascarpone or clotted cream would be terrific! I used Red Sensation pears but Bosc would also be excellent. Use a decent drinkable red for the best results. I use a Sangiovese when I make these. The recipe can easily be divided in half for 4 servings…but even cold leftover pears are fantastic!
Makes 8 Servings
8 pears, Bosc are a good choice
Juice of 1 lemon
¼ cup sugar
½ cup honey
1 ½ cups red wine
1 vanilla bean or ½ tsp. vanilla extract
2 whole cloves
3 – 4 black peppercorns
Peel the pears, cut in half lengthwise, remove the cores (I recommend using a melon baller), trim any bits at the blossom end. You can keep the stems on if you like. Split the vanilla bean lengthwise and scrape out the seeds. Place the pod and seeds into the pot along with the lemon juice, sugar, honey, red wine, cloves and peppercorns.
Bring the mixture to a simmer over medium heat; add the pears, lower the heat to simmer, cover and simmer for 5 minutes. Remove lid, carefully turn the pears over, replace the lid, continue to simmer for approximately 5 more minutes or until the pears are just tender. Remove the pears to a shallow glass dish; bring the liquid to a boil, reduce the heat to medium; simmer until slightly syrupy. Pour the mixture over the pears, cool. When room temperature, cover, chilingl for a minimum of 4 hours or until the next day. Serve 2 pear halves per person with some of the red wine syrup spooned over top.
