Cooking Class...Poached Pears

Last night, I did a cooking lesson at the Lamson-Goodnow shop in Northampton, MA. It was a great crowd, terrific helpers from the shop (and Karen, too), and a fun menu. One of the things I did was poached pears. But I’ve decided on another angle with them. Instead of poaching the whole pear, I decided to peel the pears, and cut them, length-wise, in quarters, and then poach them. There are a couple of benefits: they cook MUCH faster(10 minutes vs. 30+ minutes), and you don’t have to do the awkward whole-pear-coring thing. That is just brutal. And the pear usually gets mangled when you try to core it whole. And, after a large meal, who wants to eat a WHOLE pear? So, I served two quarters, with some freshly-made ginger snaps. And with the poaching liquid, too. And I used red wine, not white. The red wine, in a shocking development, turned the pears red. This added some nice color to the whole thing.

But the class itself was fun. After a while, people started asking questions, wondering about all kinds of things. Types of fish to cook, types of pots and pans to use (my favorite, for which, sadly, I get NO compensation, All-Clad), and how to cook portabellas. So, when the next class comes up (April 16), come for the fun. And the food, too.

Oh yeah. The poached pear recipe. It’s really good…

Poached Pears

1 (750-ml) bottle red or white wine…red wine will turn the pears red…
1 cup water
3/4 cup vanilla (or regular granulated) sugar
1 whole vanilla bean, split and scraped
4 firm Bartlett, Anjou or Bosc pears, peeled leaving the stem intact

Place the white wine, water, sugar and vanilla bean and pulp into a 4-quart saucepan over medium-high heat and bring to a boil.

Core the pears from the bottom. Decrease the heat to medium low and place the pears into the liquid, cover and cook for 30 minutes or until the pears are tender but not falling apart. Maintain a gentle simmer. Remove the pears to a serving dish, standing them upright, and place in the refrigerator.

Remove the vanilla bean from the saucepan, increase the heat to high and reduce the syrup to approximately 1 cup of liquid, approximately 20 to 25 minutes. Do not allow the syrup to turn brown. Place the syrup in a heatproof container and place in the refrigerator until cool, approximately 1 hour.

Remove the pears from the refrigerator, spoon the sauce over the pears and serve.

NOTE: Save yourself some time and effort and cut the pears in half, or quarters, length-wise, before poaching. Then, gently cut out the core and seeds. Proceed with the poaching, but check the pears after 10 minutes to see if they’re done. Serve two pear halves (or quarters) together.