Poached Pears in White Wine

The poached pear is a controversial dessert. It's easy to make, but can be easy to screw up as well. It can be romantic and easy to serve, or it could just be an easy way out. The trick to good poached pears is, first and foremost, picking the right pears that are already in season, ripe, and oozing delicious pear, before being bruised and abused and thus not so pretty to serve. I've found that Bartlet work well, as do Bosc. Purchase them a bit firm, before you plan on using them, and let them ripen for a couple of days. If they start to go too fast, you can either slow them down via the fridge, or you can poach them, and they'll hold in their syrup for about three days. This brings us to another advantage of the poached pear, the fact that you can prep it all and save it in its syrup for a mighty three days before dessert/salad/etc. is served. That gives you two days to screw up your tart crust enough times to give up and just serve poached pears, or two days to masterfully perfect the rest of your meal in a more leisurely manner.

Lastly, choose a wine that you like to drink as your wine for poaching. Sometimes wine that maybe was a well-intentioned gift but wasn't really what you like to drink gets sidelined for cooking purposes, and that's fine if we're just de-glazing a pan, but when you poach a pear, you are essentially giving the pear the complexion of whatever wine you are using, so lay off the yellow tail for a bit. Use a sauvignon blanc or chardonnay that you drink on a regular basis, and you'll get lovely bright colors in your pear. A chardonnay will lend oakier tones, because it is chardonnay and that's an oakier wine. TK and I are not so big on the chardonnay, so we always use sauvignon blanc, but either of those wines will work and will avoid being overly sweet. You want the sweet to come from the vanilla bean, not the wine. The wine is there for brightness.

How do you serve your poached pears? Well, you can add some nuts and frisee and some goat cheese and you have your self a pretty nice upscale salad, or you can slice and add to a decedent pear tart with frangipane, or you can serve simply and beautifully with some vanilla or ice cream and tea cookies. It can serve as the sweet counter to a savory cheese plate or first course, or stand alone as a dessert. It's really a versatile little course that's good to have in your pocket.

Poached Pears with White Wine

1 bottle white wine (750 ml)

2/3 cup granulated sugar (about 4 1/2 ounces)

2 tablespoons lemon juice from 1 lemon plus 4 or 5 large strips zest removed with vegetable peeler

1 cinnamon stick

15 - 20 whole black peppercorns

3 whole cloves

1/8 teaspoon table salt

1 vanilla bean, slit in half lengthwise (optional, but encouraged)

4 ripe but firm pears (about 8 ounces each), preferably Bosc or Bartlett

Instructions

1. Combine wine, sugar, lemon juice and zest, cinnamon, peppercorns, cloves, and salt in large, nonstick saucepan or dutch oven. 
2. Scrape seeds from vanilla bean pod using a paring knife and add seeds (they look like fine caviar) to the saucepan as well as the scraped out pod.
3. Bring mixture to simmer over medium heat, stirring occasionally to dissolve sugar.
4. Peel pears with vegetable peel making long verticle stripes from stem to blossom end of pear.
5. Working quickly to avoid discoloration, cut pears in half.
6. Remove seed core of pear.
7. Cut out the blossom end of pear, then cut a long narrow "V" from cored center of pear up to and around the stem of the pear, removing the stem and the fibrous center core of pear (see photo below of pear halves for what pears should look like).
8. Gently slide pears into simmering wine using a spatula or slotted spoon.
9. Increase heat to high and return to simmer then reduce heat to low. Simmer while covered until pears are tender enough that a toothpick or skewer inserted into pear should slide in and out with very little resistance and the outer edges of pears have turned translucent. Turn pears in liquid halfway through poaching time using wooden spoon or spatula. Pears should simmer for about 10 minutes total.
10. Off heat, cool pears in liquid, partially covered, until pears have turned translucent and are cool enough to handle, about 1 hour. (Pears and liquid may be transferred to nonreactive bowl or container, cooled to room temperature, covered, and refrigerated for up to 3 days.)
11. Remove from liquid and serve pears as desired, additionally slicing if necessary. If preparing a tart, dry pears on paper towels to prevent tart from becoming soggy.