Recipe: Honey poached pears
My mama-in-law likes to gift us Asian pears. They are large and juicy with sweet, crispy flesh. I’ve made them into pear, blueberry, and banana juice, and we’ve eaten many of them purely sliced as a snack. But they are quite sizable, so we often can’t go through them as quickly as we receive them.I don’t like to waste food, so poaching them allows me to prolong their refrigerator shelf life and, more selfishly, my own enjoyment of their unique succulence.It’s an old trick in the chef book, but I only thought of this when I was sick with a bad cold and cough over Christmas, and my mama-in-law fixed me what she said is an old Korean cough remedy: core the pear, fill the hole with honey, and steam until it can be easily pierced with a knife. My parents-in-law claim the honey and soft fruit will soothe my irritated throat. And soothe it did, all the while tasting pretty darn yummy. While munching on the warm, tender pear, I thought, what better way to preserve the other pears than by cooking them?Our friends gave us some gala apples, too, so I decided to throw them in the poaching liquid just for fun. Ripe, firm-fleshed fruit are best for poaching, so We’ll see if these gala apples fare well.Poached pears can be enjoyed all by themselves as a simple winter dessert, or you can serve them alongside pastries or topped with a dollop of soft cheese at the next fancy dinner you host, or slice them into your salad, or chop them up and throw them in with your morning yogurt and granola. The possibilities are infinite, and poaching will keep this seasonal fruit around even longer.What do you flavor your poached pears with? What other fruits do you poach? How do you eat your poached fruit?And if this is your first time, happy poaching!