I made this for Christmas lunch dessert, it was easy (remember easy is my middle name) but with a stunning result as if you spent a lot of time on it. Well actually what I needed to do was peel the pears and boil them with the rest of ingredients for couple of hours.
Ingredients:
– 1 vanilla pod
– 1 bottle red wine (use the cheapest one, it doesn’t really matter)
– 225 gr caster sugar
– 1 cinnamon stick, halved
– 1 thyme spring (I didn’t use it)
– 6 pears, peeled but kept whole with stalk intact
Directions:
- Halve the vanilla pod lengthways, scrape out the black seeds and put in a large saucepan with the wine, sugar, cinnamon and thyme. Cut each piece of pod into three long thin strips, add to pan, then lower in the pears.
- Poach the pears, covered, for 20-30 mins, making sure they are covered in the wine. The cooking time will very much depend on the ripeness of your pears – they should be tender all the way through when pierced with a cocktail stick. You can make these up to 2 days ahead and chill.
- Take the pears from the pan, then boil the liquid to reduce it by half so that it’s syrupy (I didn’t do this I actually like the syrupy part). Serve each pear with the cooled syrup, a strip of vanilla, a piece of cinnamon and a small thyme sprig.
Source: BBC GoodFood
