Recipe: Poached Pears in Wine (Poires Au Vin Rouge)

Instead of the usual pumpkin or sweet potato pie for Thanksgiving dessert, which before you know it, that holiday will be upon us, why not try something different?

As we all know, we do tend to eat more than usual at Thanksgiving...we stuff ourselves rather silly, so instead of a pie dessert, poached pears in wine is a much lighter alternative and gives a little elegance to the meal.

Poached pears are a well loved favorite in France and the French for this dish is Poires au Vin Rouge. This is one of the first French desserts I made while I was teaching myself to cook French cuisine. It is time consuming....not so much with the ingredients but it does take about 3½ hours to "braise" in the oven, so that the wine absorbs into the pears.

Poires au Vin Rouge (Poached Pears)

6 Large pears (the best are Bosc or Anjou types)
½ cup sugar
1 quart dry red wine (Beaujolais or Merlot)
the skin of one lemon (yellow part only)
Peel the pears, but leave the stem intact.

In a stainless steel large saucepan add the wine, sugar and lemon peel to a slight boil. In a fairly large casserole baking dish ( such as a Corning Ware type) place the pears standing up tightly pressed against each other. Pour in the wine mixture into baking dish. Cover the dish loosely with foil...do not cover tightly as you need the steam to escape and the wine mixture to reduce properly. Bake in a 350º oven for 3½ hours or until the pears have turned into a deep uniform mahogany color.
Let the pears cool slightly in their own juices..you will have some wine mixture leftover. Place the pears standing up on individual dessert dishes, and spoon over evenly on each pear the remaining wine mixture.

As Julia Child would have said........Bon Appétit!