Poached Pears

Poaching is gentle, stove-top cooking. Firm and ripe pears are ideal candidates. They can be refrigerated or can be diced and used as ice cream or cake toppings or mixed with yogurt and can also be added to jams.
You can customize the poaching liquid to suit your taste, adding various spices, fresh ginger, vanilla beans, or wine to the mix. And can also change sweeteners, swapping out honey for sugar. 

 

Ingredients

1-2 firm ripe pears
2 cups sugar approx 250 gm
1litre water
Lemon peels of half a lemon
Juice of 1 lemon
Food coloring, a pinch ( I used red)
Spices of your choice ( I used 1 cinnamon stick , ginger,1/2 tsp nutmeg powder and 4 cloves)

Method

1. Peel the pears. Leave the stems intact. If you want to cook them whole cut a very small section at the bottom and remove the seeds. or slice the pears to make them cook early. Immediately drop them in a bowl of water added with juice of a lemon, to avoid discoloring of pears.
2. In a large saucepan, heat the water and sugar until warm and the sugar is dissolved. Add any of the additions that you wish.(lemon peel and spices) and the food coloring. Make sure saucepan is heavy bottomed else the liquid will burn while reducing it.
3. Add in the pears, you can either use the whole pears which will take a longer to cook or sliced pears which will cook early. 
4. Keep the liquid at a very low boil and simmer the pears until cooked through, 15 to 25 minutes, depending on the pears. In between keep on pushing the pears carefully into the  liquid, occasionally, if they float to the top.
5. Remove from heat and let the pears cool in their liquid.
6. After poaching the pears, reduce it to a sauce like consistency. Make sure you do it at a low flame else the liquid may burn and turn bitter. While the liquid is still warm, add approximately 1/2 cup (120 g) dried sour cherries, raisins, or dried currants and let them plump.

Serving

Serve the pears warm or at room temperature. Accompany with a scoop of ice cream and dark chocolate sauce, or just serve them whole topped with the poaching liquid you just reduced with some cookies at the sides.

Storage

Store the pears in their liquid in the refrigerator, in a covered container, until ready to use. Remove the pears from the refrigerator a few hours prior to serving, and re-warm them gently in the liquid, if you wish. The pears will keep for up to 5 days.