POAched Pear

Poached pears are a beauty to look at. I first saw them on Masterchef Australia and was drawn to it immediately. Luckily it was the pear season and we had a huge pear tree in our backyard. I had no clue how to make it. I just used my little knowledge about cooking and based on how it looked i made my first poached pears.

I did not know how it was supposed to taste. I did not know how much it should cook. So i guess my first poached pears turned out not poached enough and still crisp. Then i had a wine poached pear in a restaurant and now i could replicate and come up with my own versions too 🙂
The spices that are used in the syrup are cinnamon, clove, nutmeg, star anise. I experimented with fresh ginger and they taste as warm as it should. All these spices are hot in nature and hence its one of the winter dishes.
Ingredients
2 no – Small pears
500ml approx – Water just enough to immerse the pears
1/2 cup – Sugar
1 no – Vanilla bean that has been scraped
2 inches – Cinnamon stick1 no – Star anise
2 Tbsp – Lemon juice

Method
Combine everything except the pear into a small pot.
Peel pears, rinse and put them into the pot immediately.

Boil for 20-30 minutes, until pears are tender. I keep it on low flame for almost 2 hours.
Remove the pears and turn heat to high to reduce the syrup to about half. It should be syrupy and thick.
Keep the pears together with syrup into a deep container and chill. It can be chilled for almost a week. Serve cold or warm.

The more it is soaked in the syrup the better.
Serve it with vanilla ice cream or fresh cream.
You can add nutmeg, cloves and ginger to the syrup too.. Try and keep the spices to minimum so that the taste doesnt clash with each other. Keeping the spices to minimum will bring out the flavour clear.