Poires au Vin Rouge from a Culinary Vacation in France

Instructions

1. With a potato peeler, peel the pears, but keep the stems.
2. Peel off carefully the zesty surface of the orange rind and cut it in very fine strips (to obtain a julienne).
3. Cut the orange in nice slices.
4. Blanch the orange julienne in boiling water for 1 minute. Remove from water and reserve.
5. Pour the wine in an enamel pan with all the ingredients (except the orange julienne and the orange slices) and place the pears in it. Simmer covered for 15 minutes or until tender. Turn the pears gently from time to time so that they color evenly. Prick one pear with a thin knife to test for doneness. Remove pears and cool them in the refrigerator.
6. Now add the slices of orange and the julienned zest to the cooking juice and reduce over medium heat until it turns to syrup.
7. Strain out the slices of orange and the julienne. Reserve. Pass the wine syrup through a sieve and chill it the in the refrigerator. (Winter variation: Don’t chill the wine syrup: serve it as a hot beverage and serve the pears with vanilla ice cream!)
8. Spread some of the wine syrup evenly on each serving plate, place one pear on each of them. Spoon 1 or 2 tablespoons of wine syrup over each pear. Decorate the top of each pear with a mint leaf and arrange nicely on the plate some of the julienned rind, and one slice of orange.
   Variation: add a nice scoop of any fruit sherbet.