SPICED POACHED PEAR WITH BEET

I thought it's right to start the Valentine morning with recipes that are simple and sensual. This is the perfect Valentine’s Day desert as it’s straightforward to make, fat-free and still it has the real Wow Factor!

Poached Pear, the classic French dessert is such a delightfully flavorful, very elegant and impressive. It has a great balance of sweet, spice and fruity flavors, and the deep red colour turns this into a beautiful centerpiece dessert too. Unlike the French poaching in red wine, I have slightly modified my recipe so that it can be served to kids as well.

Poached Pears make a fantastic dinner party dessert and can be prepared in advance.  Pears have such a mild flavour that you need to use spice in a considered way to complement their fabulous taste. It's best not to use over-ripened fruit for poaching, but they should not be too hard either. Flavored with cinnamon and rosemary flavors and served with generous serving of ice-cream on the side, this dessert is a great finish to any meal.

Today, I’m going to show you how to make this easy dessert step by step, with some suggestions to lift up the flavor.

Choosing the perfect pear to poach:

Pears should be crisp and mildly sweet, making them the perfect canvas to absorb all the flavors in the poaching liquid.  Make sure that it is not over-ripe.

These poached pears can be made a day ahead and stored in the fridge. I prefer to keep the pears in the poaching liquid overnight, because the liquid will continue to flavor the pears and deepen colour even more as the pears cool down.

Ingredients:

• 4 Pears
• 1 large beetroot
• 1 stick of cinnamon (or cloves or cardamom, it’s optional)
• 1 tablespoon of sugar / honey
• Water as required
• 1 – 2 sprig of Rosemary
• 3 scoops of ice-cream 

Procedure: 

Peel the pears, leaving stem intact and being careful not to blemish the flesh of the pears.  So your end product will be neat, clean and spotless.

Peel the Beetroot skin and cut them into thin large slices.

Place the beet slices into a saucepan, just large enough to hold all the pears.

 

Pour in approximate 500ml of water, add the cinnamon stick and rosemary, cover and bring to the boil.  Cinnamon gives the mild spicy flavour, you may add some cloves as well to give a good spice hint.

When it boils and the beet releases it's colour, add sugar / honey and then gently place in the pears one by one into the poaching liquid.  Adding sugar or honey is completely optional, in case if you are calories caution and secondly if the pears are sweet enough then you can skip adding any sweetener.

The pears should be completely immersed in the water.  Cover and simmer for 25 minutes, turning every 5 minutes to ensure even colour and the pears are tender. 

Remove the saucepan from flame and allow it to cool.  I have kept it overnight, immersed in the syrup for the deep colour, this is the great tip to obtain the bright maroon colour, but this is optional.

Gently remove the pears from liquid and boil the syrup further until the liquid becomes slightly thicker.  Off the flame and let the syrup come to room temperature. 

Serve each pear by drizzling some syrup and scope of ice-cream per person.

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