Baked Pears

Ingredients:

 

• 8 ripe but firm Bosc pears
• 4 cups of seedless red grapes
• 1 cup of sugar
• 1 1/3 cup of Moscato or other fruity white wine
• Juice of 2 lemons
• 2 tablespoons of apricot jam
• 1 tablespoon of vanilla extract

Procedure:

 

1. Preheat the oven to 375 F
2. Prepare the grape bed
   • Remove the grapes from the steams.
   • Wash the grapes well under cold water, rubbing them gently, and draining well. Washing the grapes well is important to remove the natural yeast from the skins of the grapes (it is a whitish power). After washed, the grapes will look darker.
   • Place the grapes in a baking dish.
3. Mix the flavourings
   • Stir the sugar, Moscato, lemon juice, apricot jam, and vanilla together in a dish.
   • Pour the mixture over the grapes
4. Prepare acciddulated water
   • Mix the juice of one lemon in large bowl of water.
5. Prepare the pears
   • Wash the pears, drain well.
   • Cut each pear in four pieces lengthwise.
   • Remove the core, seeds and stems.
   • As each pear quarter is ready, drop it in the acidulated water to prevent it from browning.
6. Bake the pears
   • Remove the pear quarters from the acidulated water, drain well, and nestle them on the bed of grapes, cut side up.
   • Bake, uncovered, until the pears are tender and the liquid around the grapes is thick and syrupy (about 50 minutes to 1 hour).
7. Reduce the syrup
   • Remove the pears and grapes from the dish with a slotted spoon.
   • Cook down the sauce on top of the stove until the sauce becomes syrupy.
8. Serving
   • Serve the pears with grapes warm with a spoon of vanilla flavoured whipped cream.