We had pears poached in white wine last week. And from there I moved onto poached plums, which were meant to get a red wine bath. (Although my poaching liquid was a bit of a franken-mix of red and white, but... close enough!) Well, after that, I still had a bunch of poaching liquid left over. And I hated to throw it out. So I picked out another wine-poached fruit recipe.

Honestly, I'd been hoping to do poached apricots next. They required a very similar poaching liquid, but with the addition of a small amount of rosewater. My intent had been to do the apricots and then, with the leftover liquid from that make these poached pears. But I couldn't find any fresh apricots (or nectarines) at the grocery store. So I skipped over that recipe for now and moved straight to the red wine pears.

As written, the recipe called for four Bosc pears poached in sweetened, spiced red wine. It used 3/4 c. of sugar to 750mL of wine + some cloves, cinnamon, and lemon zest. Since I already had a light syrup of a mix of red and white wine, cloves, cinnamon, lemon zest, star anise, peppercorns, vanilla, and ginger; I just reused it completely unaltered. And, since my pears were quite small, I tossed a few extras in. I managed to fit seven small pears into the pot with the poaching liquid.

Once I started boiling the syrup down, I gave it a taste and decided that it was slightly undersweetened for my liking. (I'm really not sure what the overall sugar-to-wine ratio was at this point. Since I'd already amended and reused it so many times.) So I stirred in 1 Tbsp. of extra sugar and let it continue cooking down. I feel like this produced a nice final result as a sauce to drizzle over the pears. That said, this is something that will be largely down to your personal taste (and the wine you use¹).

Pears Poached in Red Wine

Slightly adapted from Dessert of the Day by Kim Laidlaw

Ingredients

• 4-8 Bosc² pears
• 750mL fruity red wine
• 3/4 c. sugar
• 1 strip of lemon zest (~5cm long and 2.5cm wide)
• 1 cinnamon stick (~7cm long)
• 2 whole cloves
• 2 Tbsp. unsalted butter

Directions

1. Peel the pears, leaving the stem on.
2. Using a small spoon or melon baller and starting from the blossom end, remove the cores. (Leaving the stem end in tact.)
3. Trim a thin slice off the bottom of each pear so it will stand upright.
4. Combine the wine, sugar, lemon zest, cinnamon stick, and cloves in a small pot and bring to a boil.
5. Add the pears. If there is not enough liquid to cover them, add water until it does.
6. Reduce heat to medium-low and simmer until pears are tender (20-30 minutes).
7. Transfer pears to dish.
8. Increase heat to medium and boil syrup down until it is somewhat thick and volume is reduced to ~3/4 c.
9. Remove from heat and stir in butter.
10. Drizzle sauce over pears and serve.

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¹ This recipe (and the one for the poached plums that I did before this) calls for a "fruity red wine" and suggests a Merlot or a Zinfandel as good options. I wasn't about to go out and get a whole new bottle of wine just for this, so I used whatever I had on hand already. And I have no idea whether it was a "fruity" wine or not. (Although hopefully all the rounds of fruit poaching in it did serve to lend it some fruitiness.) I think it was relatively dry, but I have no idea whether that has any bearing on its fruitiness or not. I am not a wine person. ^Back
2 The recipe specifically calls for Bosc pears, so that's what I used. That said, I do think it would be interesting to try it with other varieties. I ended up using Bartlett pears for the white wine version and I quite liked those. Don't get me wrong, the Bosc were nice. I'd just be interested to see how Bartlett or Anjou pears turned out when given this treatment. ^Back