Best French Recipe for Port Wine Poached Pears (Simple Recipe)

These slightly sweet stewed pears with Port and red wine syrup are wonderfully soft. Your knife slides through the pear. With the first bite, the pear melts on your tongue and all the flavors are released. So delicious. This is a winter dessert that you serve as a simple dessert with a scoop of vanilla ice cream, processed in a crumble or with which you make a delicious cake.

And with this simple recipe you can quickly prepare an elegant dessert to serve to your dinner guests.

It's the time of year again to eat Poached Pears. Old-fashioned French poached pears, do you remember them from back in the day. We ate them at room temperature with custard or ice cream, a delicious dessert. Old-fashioned stewed in wine in combination with pear red or in wine with Port, my Grandma's recipe with port (the best way to prepare them).

This gives you that beautiful red color, which the stewed pears are known for, and delicious simple syrup. And after a few hours of stewing (where you hardly have to worry about it), you can serve them. Or you can save them and serve them the next day. That's fine.

Simmer for a few hours on a gas stove and then eat them. Delicious.

And do you have any leftovers now? You really don't have to throw that away. If you have a baking itch, make a delicious crumble with it. Or bake pancakes and serve stewed pears with it. And a poached pears champagne cocktail is also a really fun (and tasty idea). Delicious!

How do you get stewed pears with a nice red color?

You may think that stewed pears are always red, and that is when you use stewed pears that you simmer slowly in a slightly acidic liquid. They get the red color from a substance that a real cooking pear has (anthocyanins) that turns red when cooked under the influence of acid (from wine, for example).

Adding red wine, red port or berry juice makes them extra red. And that beautiful color with the cream inside makes it a fancy dessert.

Ingredients Easy Poached pears from the stove

A full list of ingredients can be found at the end of this blog.

• Poached pears: Use firm pears such as Bartlett, Gieser Wildeman, Brederode, Anjou pears, or Bosc pears for this recipe. Those are pretty sturdy. It is also possible with a firm Conference, but there is a danger that it will fall apart. Stew the conference pears for only 20 minutes.
• Red Wine: Use a smooth red wine with fruit and spice accents. That goes well with the stewed pears. Think of a Merlot and Pinot Noir, those are good choices. For an alcohol-free variant, replace the red wine and port with red grape juice. Add 100 grams of extra powdered sugar.
• Port: Opt for a sweet red Port. Because we partly use the port and this is already sweet, less powdered sugar is added.
• Cloves and Cinnamon Stick: Warm spices to give a deep intense flavor to the stewed pears.

How to make French poached pears in Port wine?

You can find a recipe that you can easily print at the bottom of the blog.

1. Peel the whole pear and cut a thin strip from the bottom of the pear. This keeps the poached pears upright after cooking. Leave the stem on (it looks nicer).
2. Place the pears upright in the pan. Use a large saucepan so that they fit snugly, but not too much space between them.
3. Heat the wine and port into the pan. Add the powdered sugar. Place the cinnamon stick and cloves in the liquid and bring to a boil. Pour the hot liquid over the pears. Simmer for 2 to 3 hours, uncovered. The fluid level will drop (but that's normal and good). When you can easily prick the flesh with a fork and feel no resistance, the pears are ready.
4. Carefully remove the pears from the pan with a slotted spoon and place them on a plate. Now turn on to medium heat to medium-high heat and let the poaching liquid slowly reduce to a syrup (about half an hour). Pour the poaching syrup over the pears (or serve separately).

3 x Dessert with Fruit