White wine poached pears are delicious, especially served warm with cold vanilla ice cream. Perfect with a glass of sweet wine or Champagne.
This recipe is full of tropical flavours of sweet passion fruit, tangy pomegranate, vanilla and cinnamon. Served with crunchy toasted hazelnuts and vanilla ice cream.
This recipe will most certainly impress your guests.
You need:
4 medium-sized pears
200 ml sweet white wine
200 ml white sugar
400 ml water
1 vanilla pod
1 cinnamon stick
The juice of a half a lemon
The zest from half a lemon
A pinch of salt
2 passion fruits
1 pomegranate
2 tablespoons of pomegranate molasses
4 serving spoons roughly chopped hazelnuts
How you make it:
Peel the pears and place them in a bowl with cold water and a squeeze of lemon juice, to prevent them from turning brown.
Roughly chop the hazelnuts and toast them in the oven or frying pan until they turn golden brown and start to smell nutty.
Place sugar, water, salt and wine in a pot.
Cook on medium heat while stirring until the sugar has dissolved.
When the liquid starts to boil, add the juice of half a lemon, most of the lemon zest and the cinnamon stick.
Cut the vanilla pod lengthwise and scrape out the seeds. Add the seeds and the pod to the pot.
Add the pears to the pot, standing up. Make sure the pears are covered completely by the liquid.
Cook on low heat until the pears have softened but still have a bite to them.
Remove the pears from the pot and keep cooking the liquid on high heat until reduced to half.
Drizzle pomegranate syrup decoratively on a serving plate, top with the roasted chopped hazelnuts and passion fruit.
Place the pears upright on the plate and garnish with the pomegranate seeds. Drizzle over some of the white wine reduction.
Enjoy warm with a glass of white dessert wine and vanilla ice cream.
