Pears are in season. A perfect energy-boosting snack as it is rich in natural fruit sugars. I like eating them as they are or sometimes I pair them with baby fennel in salads. For a change, I made dessert tonight and tried a classic flavour combination, pear and chocolate. I loved the flavours in this one. Pear poached in pink moscato then served with a special chocolate sauce. It is very fruity, not too rich but just the right amount of sweetness to it.
Ingredients
(Serves 2)
- 2 medium pears
- 250 ml pink moscato (or any sweet white wine of your choice)
- 1/4 cup caster sugar
- 25 g butter
- 150 g plain chocolate, broken or chopped into pieces
- mint sprigs, to decorate
- Peel pears, with stalks attached.
- Put sugar and moscato in a medium saucepan. Bring slowly to the boil, stirring occasionally, until sugar is dissolved.
- Add pears to pan, standing them upright. Bring to boil. Cover.
- Poach pears until just tender, turning them occasionally. Poaching time will vary depending on size of pears. The medium size pears I used for this recipe were poached for 50 minutes.
- Once done, leave pears to cool in the syrup. Remove pears from the pan with a slotted spoon. Set aside.
- To make chocolate sauce, bring syrup to the boil. Boil rapidly until syrup is reduced by two-thirds.
- Reduce heat. Add chocolate and butter. Stir until chocolate is melted and smooth.
- Serve pears with the sauce. Garnish with mint sprigs.
For an extra treat, you can serve this with vanilla ice cream. Or the left-over pink moscato. Divinely decadent!
