Poached pears in wine (or Poire à la Beaujolais) is a classic French dessert.

A fancy, yummy & of course a very gorgeous dessert recipe which is so easy to prepare. That too without

“Necessity is the Mother of Invention” is a well known proverb and perfectly fits in here.
In Burgundy ( which is a wine drinking region in France) when the pears used to be harvested, the unripe ones used to be set aside. And instead of throwing the fruit, this poaching technique was used to create this lovely and fancy dessert.
Isn’t it a very humble and straightforward cooking method to save harvested fruit instead of just throwing away ?!!

And so beautifully this technique amps the flavour of the fruit from 0 to 100 instantly.

This is a warm dessert ideal to have on a cold winter night or when it’s raining outside. The translucent, red-tinted pears are a sheer joy. Every bite is oozing with all the flavours of the different spices, the reduced wine and the vanilla. You can serve it with a scoop of vanilla icecream or whipped cream on the side.

For this recipe you will need a good red wine (fruity flavoured), cloves, cardamom, a piece of cinnamon stick, few drops of vanilla essence, sugar or honey and some orange zest.

(For this recipe I have used : Fratelli Classic Shiraz)

WINE POACHED PEARS

Ingredients :

2 cups Red Wine (look for a fruity flavoured)
2 ripe but firm pears
2 sticks of cinnamon
1 whole cardamom
5 cloves
Vanilla essence a few drops
Orange zest or orange peel

Method :

First keep the wine to heat in a deep vessel alongwith all the spices, the orange zest and the vanilla.
Then peel the pears and dunk them in the wine. Continue to boil for 20 to 30 minutes (if pears are small) , may take a bit longer for bigger pears.
After 30 minutes insert a knife to check if pears are tender. If there is no resistence it means the pears are ready.
Keep them overnight in the same pan immersed in the wine to serve next day. This way the flavours get more bold and seep into the fruit.
Next day remove the pears onto a serving plate and bring the wine to boil and reduce it till it becomes thick but still a pouring consistency. This should take 15 to 20 minutes.
Serve the poached pears with whipped cream or icecream (I have served with whipped cream garnished with pomegranate seeds)
Make sure you drizzle the reduced wine onto the pears before serving.

Now please find your favourite people who deserve this fancy dessert and share with them. It is fantastic way of impressing those beautiful people in your lives.

Go ahead make them feel special. 😍

Note : For this recipe you need to use pears which are firm and not overripe. While cooking you need to rotate them in the pan for the wine to coat it evenly. Hence, if the pears are too ripe the heat will disintegrate the fruit while cooking. And yes, don’t throw away the reduced wine syrup from the pan, use it over icecreams / cakes / puddings etc.

Interesting facts : Back in those days the poached pears compote used to preserved with a tin spoon inside the jar in order to give it a good red colour.

This was the last recipe of June month’s concept – COOKING WITH WINE