Pears in Wine: Simple Elegance

How many times have you waited impatiently for the pears in the fruit bowl to ripen, gently pressing them every day or two, and found that they just don’t seem to soften?

Pear lovers in France and Italy have a sweet solution for turning less than perfect pears into wonderful desserts. They discovered long ago that when you poach pears in wine, they become seductively tender and flavorful. Perhaps pears take so well to the tangy flavor of dry wine because they lack acidity of their own. Their taste and velvety texture benefit from the aromatic syrup.

Pears in wine are among the few classic desserts that are guilt-free. Light and refreshing, they can be served hot or cold according to the weather and your mood.

This dessert is economical too, because you can use any wine, including the open bottle left over from your latest dinner party.

French cooks generally use red wine, and Italians prefer white, but Port and rose can also be used. One bonus with red wine: If the pears sit in the syrup overnight or longer, they gradually take on the wine’s deep color.

For flavoring the wine, cinnamon sticks, vanilla beans and other whole spices are the top choices. Their taste infuses into the syrup as it simmers. A few cloves can contribute a distinctive note. Adventurous cooks use bay leaves, slices of ginger root, allspice berries, anise seeds or even black and green peppercorns.

I occasionally add star anise. Citrus is another popular accent for the syrup in the form of wide strips of orange or lemon zest peeled off the fruit with a vegetable peeler.

Traditional formulas call for peeling the pears and poaching them whole or halved. To shorten their cooking time, I cut the pears in four or six pieces and remove the core in the process. I often skip the step of peeling to save more time. The skin contains some of the fruit’s fiber and most of its vitamin C.

After poaching the pears, I like to boil the syrup briefly to concentrate its taste and thicken it slightly.

Anjou, Bosc and Bartlett are my favorite pears for poaching in wine. I usually save the sweet, juicy Comice pears for eating raw. Although pears for poaching can be firm, they should not be rock hard. And remember to ripen pears at room temperature, not in the refrigerator.

Pears in wine make a marvelous ending to a meal on their own, but sometimes they are used as a basis for more elaborate creations. For Italian “pears in a shirt,” the white wine-poached pears are coated with meringue and baked. Classic French pears Alma are cooked with Port and orange rind, then topped with toasted almonds and Chantilly cream. Some chefs cloak wine-poached pears with chocolate sauce and serve them over vanilla ice cream to create a spirited variation of pears Helene.

PEARS IN SPICED WINE

Serve these pears warm, cold or at room temperature. As a variation, you might like to add eight pitted prunes along with the pears; they cook in the same time and complement the taste of the pears and the wine. Cabernet Sauvignon is a good choice for the red wine, and Chardonnay or Chablis for the white.

1 cup dry red wine or dry white wine

1/3 cup sugar

1 (3-inch) stick cinnamon or 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon

2 whole cloves or 1 star anise

Water

4 ripe but firm, pears (about 1 1/2 pounds)

Combine wine with sugar, cinnamon, cloves or star anise and 1/2 cup water in medium saucepan. Peel pears if desired. Halve pears and cut out cores. Cut each half in 3 lengthwise slices.

Bring wine mixture to simmer, stirring. Add pears and return to simmer. Cover and cook over low heat until pears are just tender, 10 to 15 minutes. (Note: If you prefer thicker, more concentrated syrup, remove pears with slotted spoon, boil syrup over medium-high heat until thickened slightly, 3 to 5 minutes, then pour the syrup over the pears.)

Leave pears in wine until ready to serve. Remove whole spices and serve pears in deep dish with syrup.

Variation: Omit cloves or star anise. Using vegetable peeler, peel strips of peel of 1 lemon or orange, using only the orange or yellow part, not the bitter white pith. Add citrus strips to syrup at same time as cinnamon. After pears are cooked, remove citrus strips with slotted spoon or strain syrup to remove.

4 servings. Each serving:

202 calories; 5 mg sodium; 0 cholesterol; 1 gram fat; 43 grams carbohydrates; 1 gram protein; 2.35 grams fiber.