Poached Pears

Ingredients:

- Pears: 4
- Red wine: 250 ml
- Orange juice: 250ml
- Brown sugar: 50g
- Cardamom: 2-3 pods
- Cinnamon: 1 stick or a tsp of the ground stuff
- Vanilla: depending on how rich you are feeling.
- Cloves: 1 or 2
- Nutmeg: a pinch

Preparation Time:

15 min

Cooking Time:

90 min

1st the tricky bit: peel the pears being really careful not to break the little stalks.
Stand them upright in a pan, the heavier the pan you have the better. The pears should fit snugly into the pan.

2nd the easy bit: pour the wine and juice into the pan, add the sugar and spices.
Put on your gas ring/aga/cheap student setup/source of heat, set on lowest setting. Wait around while the mulled wine smell fills you abode for about an hour, check periodically that the liquid is at least half way up the pears, if not add more water or wine.

After about an hour and 20 minutes whack the heat up and reduce the liquid until there is only about a cup and a half of it left.

Take off the heat, carefully pull the pears out by their stalks and put them in your bowl, add some of the red wine juice.

Eat, with indecent amounts of cream.

This recipe is taken from Cook n'Share, Pyrex's new online culinary community. Devised by Pheebs, it can be found at the following address: http://www.cooknshare.eu/en/recipes/recipe-details.php?id=488
Please feel free to join Cook n’Share and leave her a comment.