Poached Pears

Bought pears of the kaiser variety at the supermarket on Monday and discovered what a mistake I had made that very afternoon. Although fairly ripe, the texture was extremely grainy which made for a disgusting mouthful.

Not wanting to eat any more of them raw and having half a bottle of vin santo left over from cooking the quails, I decided what they needed was poaching. After a quick google, I followed a basic recipe of spices, sugar, lemon rind and vin santo adjusting the amounts to my own preferences. I can imagine it would be lovely served with marscapone as the recipe suggests but that's not the sort of thing I keep to hand. Maybe I should. But then again, I do try to run competitively and things like marscapone are just not conducive to training no matter how hard you try.

While the pears are cooking I sit and think about how I don't remember having eaten poached pears for a long time, but they were one of my favourite things as a child. Mum used to take me to my grandparent's house most weekends to have Sunday lunch and there, if in season we would follow the unfailingly magnificent roast chicken with a pudding such as lemon apple, apple Charlotte or poached pears which were kept in kiln jars in the larder. The smell reminds me and leaves a smile on my face.

...So, while the pears were cooking I also got sidetracked into reading other food blogs as you do. It was interesting and inspiring, and a man from The Telegraph reviewing 'the best' food blogs described the food blogger as an 'elusive' type. Am I elusive? Perhaps I was this morning, I moved in a sloth like fashion about the house and saw no one. However, now is the time for fast action as I lift my nose from the digital page before me and smell caramelisation occurring and I know that in the very next second that smell will change to burning. Fortunately, our kitchen being small, I managed to leap to the stove in time and rescue the reducing syrup so that although rather more jammy than intended it is still edible.  

The pears are good and I save some for breakfast (still no fresh bread) but the sauce makes them a little too sweet and cloying. Granny's were better simply plain, no embellishments;  if you start with good pears they will speak for themselves. Having started with bad pears, I think the wine, lemon and cinnamon improved them but the addition of the reduced poaching liquid afterwards was definitely de trop and cursing myself, I admit that it really would have been excellent with marscapone just to lift and refresh it slightly as it so needed!

# http://madonnadelpiatto.com/2009/02/27/pere-al-vin-santo/

#http://www.telegraph.co.uk/foodanddrink/7798474/The-best-food-blogs.html