Posh Preserved Pears

After a false start, (I bought 10 Seckel pears and then put off doing anything with them for so long they were half-rotten so I had to throw them out and start again) I finally made a batch of preserved pears. I think I'm the only one in the household who likes canned pears, or fresh ones for that matter, so I expect to eat these myself.

It was a recipe in the paper, and the photo accompanying it was so attractive I had to make it. The results of my concoction are less pretty (I think I overcooked the pears, so they are a bit disintegrated, clouding the liquid in the bottles), but they are still pretty, and the flavor is quite tasty.



Pears Preserved in Madeira with Bay

8-10 Seckel or Forelle pears
1 Tbl lemon juice
750 ml bottle of Madeira
1 cup sugar
1-2 cups water
8-10 fresh bay leaves (dry is okay if fresh is unavailable)

Peel, halve and core pears, and let them sit in a bowl of water with the lemon juice added while you prepare the liquid.

Bring the Madeira, sugar and water to a boil in a large pan. Add pear halves (with slotted spoon) and bay leaves. Turn down heat, and let simmer for 30-40 minutes until pears are tender but not falling apart.

Meanwhile, fill canning jars with boiling (or very hot) water and let sit.

When pears are cooked, empty the jars and spoon in the pears (if you want them to look pretty, try to slide them into the jar pointed end up). Remove bay leaves from the liquid, and let it come to a boil again. Ladle liquid over pears (enough that the top of the jar is all liquid, no pears showing). Slide bay leaves into jar, one leaf per pear.

Close jar and process. (I boiled the filled jars for 10 minutes, which has always worked for jam.)

Note: You can make this with other pears (Bartletts are said to be the best flavor; Bosc hold their shape nicely and have a spicier flavor that would blend nicely). You will need only about half as many pears. Do not halve the liquid, however -- you'll still need as much.

Variant: Substitute Port for Madeira, and a Vanilla Bean (or two) for the Bay Leaves. I think this would make a very sweet concoction, good for serving over ice cream. (I haven't made that version.)

An Update on the Distilled Wines

We had a friend over to celebrate Girl-Child's birthday last night, and -- because he was asking, nay, pestering -- we brought out the Vin de Noix (the fortified red wine infused with walnuts) and the Nocino (simply vodka infused with walnuts). The vin de noix is about 5 weeks out of distilling, the nocino only about 3. The vin de noix is really quite tasty, definitely stepping into port territory (not even sure we can taste the walnuts actually).

The nocino needs more aging, to be generous. Strongly flavored, it is also strongly bitter. We realized it needs to be filtered at least on more time -- gazillions of tiny black spots float in the liquid, so many we expect we accidentally confused pitchers and poured together one filtered and one unfiltered batches. The floating walnut bits probably make it more bitter than otherwise. So more filtering to come, and then some more time.

We are glad we have so many bottles of the vin de noix, however. Enough to give a few away, yet still have plenty to savor ourselves.