Red Wine Poached Pears
Some recipes have a timeless appeal, and are reinvented over decades, even centuries. Pears poached in sweetened wine are one of the oldest confectionery treats. Dating back to Medieval Europe, pears were looked on more favorably than apples and often cooked in honeyed red wine with spices. Our version of Red Wine Poached Pears is a simple and easily adaptable dessert redolent with rich warming spices, evoking the vibrant hues of autumn. Poached Pears make a unique topping to an ice cream Sunday, and we like to serve them with red wine sauce and homemade caramel. If you have pears leftover, try our Salted Caramel & Pear Bread Pudding.
Yield: 6 poached pears
Ingredients:
- 6 firm but ripe Bosc pears
- 1 bottle red wine (use an inexpensive dry red, that you enjoy)
- 3/4 cup sugar
- 3 cloves
- 2 whole black peppercorns
- 1 vanilla bean, split in half
- Pinch of salt
Flavor Substitutions: whole cardamom, orange peel, fresh thyme, Allspice berries, fresh ginger, cinnamon sticks, star anise
Steps:
- Peel pears with a vegetable peeler, working to keep the stalk intact if possible. Cut off bottom ends so the pears are able to stand upright.
- In a large pot, over medium high heat, add wine, sugar, cloves, pepper, vanilla and salt. Bring mixture to a boil, stirring briefly to ensure sugar is dissolved.
- Reduce heat to a simmer and add the peeled pears to the wine mixture. Rotate and baste the pears every 5 minutes to ensure even color and cooking.
- Simmer uncovered for 15-30 minutes total, until the pears are cooked through. The cooking will vary depending on the ripeness and size of your pears. The pears are done when they are easily pierced through with a knife.
- Once the pears are cooked through, remove them from the poaching liquid, cover, and refrigerate until ready to serve.
- Boil the remaining spiced red wine mixture until it is reduced to a thick syrup, and about half the original amount of liquid, about 5-10 minutes. Do not leave the reducing liquid unsupervised as it can burn easily as it condenses.
- To serve, bring the pears to room temperature or warm, and serve over vanilla ice cream with the reduced poaching liquid and homemade caramel sauce. These pears are infinitely adaptable and can be added to many desserts, cakes, pies or tarts.
Salted Caramel & Pear Bread Pudding
Dessert descriptions are thorny things. When it comes to sweet things I find that eloquence often fails me, and unhelpfully divide desserts into two camps, delicious… or, not. While clear cut, these categories do not offer the reader much to recommend this decadent Salted Caramel & Pear Bread Pudding. Besides the obvious “delicious, ”a brief description is in order. Salted Caramel & Pear Bread Pudding has some great things going for it. The bread is toasted to maximize its ability to absorb all the decadent custard, the custard is silky and aromatic with a whopping ¼ cup of vanilla, and is further treated to a topping of caramelized pears with accompanying pan sauce of pear infused salted caramel. For all its flavor and texture complexity, this dessert is also subtle and balanced. This recipe is adapted from one of our favorite cookbooks: Rustic Fruit Desserts. The gorgeous pears for this dish come from our Penn's Corner CSA.
Red Cabbage Sauerkraut with Apple & Clove
I love sauerkraut, and this is one of my seasonal favorites. The red cabbage, apples, cloves, and black pepper lend it color and warm fall flavors. Homemade sauerkraut is easier than you think, and it is incomparable to the stuff you can buy in the grocery. For a longer discussion of fermentation technique and background, check out our Homemade Sauerkraut With Juniper And Caraway. For this batch I used a beautiful stoneware crock made by our good friend Colin Dyck at Mudslide Stoneware. These traditional European-style crocks are both gorgeous and practical, including a water-lock for fuss-free fermentation. For my all-time favorite use of sauerkraut, check out our Reuben Sandwich.
Maple Walnut Baklava
We love maple syrup! Possibly my own craving for this iconic sap is the result of my Canadian heritage. But then there’s my American husband, who obsessively drizzles maple syrup over everything in sight, from a sweetener in his tea and coffee, to pork roasts, chili, ice cream, to salmon. Regardless of the origins of our maple passion, the maple-fication of Baklava was really quite inevitable. Maple syrup accompanies us camping and hiking, vacationing and traveling. Little bottles of maple syrup were stowed away in my suitcase headed to Ethiopia by my mother, and were in our packs as we traveled by moto in Vietnam and hitchhiked in Thailand. Maple Walnut baklava is a fantastic dessert, managing to be both light and flaky and also rich and gooey. This dessert features sheets of delicate filo, layered with the toasted flavors of browned butter, roasted walnuts, cinnamon, oranges and clove. Once cooked, the flaky pastry is bathed in a concentrated maple syrup, with a deep caramel flavor and subtle sweet notes.
Caramelized Cardamom Spiced Apples with Pistachio Cream
It’s a weeknight and you want pie. Unfortunately, you’re husband (and resident crust-maker) is still at school and you are not confident enough (read: too lazy) to make a crust. My solution: Caramelized Cardamom Spiced Apples with Pistachio Cream, essentially an Indian scented pie filling without the bother of a crust. We have had Indian flavors on the mind recently and have served this as an accompaniment to Pork Vindaloo.
Cuban Shredded Beef, Ropa Vieja
A pastel-hued Cuban diner in Philadelphia was the site of my last fragrant bowl of Ropa Vieja, and I have been plotting to recreate this succulent dish ever since. For me, nothing compares to a slow braised, big flavored, meat dish swimming in a pungent, aromatic sauce. This is my protein paradise!
