Pears in Pomegranate Syrup
For months I’ve had a bottle of Lebanese Cortas pomegranate juice concentrate sitting on a pantry shelf, lonely as the little can of Crisco I’ll never open again but haven’t thrown out. I have no idea where I bought it and I’ve never known quite what to do with it.
Big mistake. The stuff is magical, as I found out when I made the recipe below. Smells wonderful, tastes wonderful: almost floral. It transports pears to a realm they’d never visit without it.
Like acai juice (how do you pronounce that?) pomegranate juice gets a lot of hype in the earthy crunchy mags about its purported ability to lower cholesterol, add antioxidants to your diet, stave off arthritis, yada, yada. I have no idea if it does any of those things. I do know I’ll be looking for more ways to use it.
The Epicurious version of this recipe called for red wine, but I happened to have white and I like the result. It also called for peeling whole Bosc pears with the stem left on and pulling out the core from the bottom with a melon baller. Right. I am just not that into fussiness when the pears taste just as good cut up. Not as elegant, perhaps, but lovely nonetheless.
3/4 cup dry white wine
3/4 cup pomegranate juice
1/2 cup sugar
1 cinnamon stick
2 teaspoons grated orange peel
6 Bosc pears, quartered, peeled and sliced
Vanilla ice cream or Greek yogurt
Preheat oven to 350°F. Stir wine, pomegranate juice, sugar, cinnamon stick, and orange peel in medium saucepan over medium heat until sugar dissolves, about 3 minutes. Remove from heat.
Lightly butter the bottom of an 8×8 baking dish. Pour pomegranate-wine sauce over pears. Roast until pears are tender but not mushy when pierced with knife, checking after 20 minutes. Transfer roasted pears to serving dish or individual glasses.
Transfer pan juices to small saucepan. Simmer until reduced to 2/3 cup, about 5 minutes. Can be made 4 hours ahead. Let sauce and pears stand at room temperature. Re-warm sauce when ready to serve
Put pears in bowls. Spoon glaze over pears. Serve warm or at room temperature with vanilla ice cream or Greek yogurt.
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