Pears in red wine with blackcurrant

A recipe from cooking-ez.com

For 6 people, you will need:

• 1 750 ml red wine
• 2 250 ml blackcurrant liqueur
• 3 100 g caster sugar
• 4 3 Pears
• 5 1 vanilla pod
• 6 2 pinches agar-agar
• 7 200 ml real custard sauce (crème anglaise)
• 8 fresh mint leaves
• Total weight: 1,845 grams

Times:

Preparation	Resting	Cooking	Start to finish
55 min.	1 hour	40 min.	2 hours 35 min.

Step by step recipe

1	In a pan, pour 750 ml red wine, 250 ml blackcurrant liqueur and 100 g caster sugar.
2	For each pears, one by one: peel, cut in two, remove core and if necessary fiber around tail.
3	Put immediately the half in syrup to prevent from blackening. Proceed so with all pears.
4	Put pan on low fire, add 1 vanilla pod, and make cook pears uncovered until they are well soft. Let cool in the syrup, covered this time, if possible during all night.
5	Tomorrow, remove pears from syrup, put in another container, and covered by a half of syrup. Cover and let wait at ambient temperature.
6	Put back pan on low fire, and make reduce a half volume.
7	When syrup is reduced, pour through a fine strainer, in a smaller pan.
8	Bring to boil and add 2 pinches agar-agar, mix well with a fork, and remove from fire. Let thicken when cooling.
9	A bit before serving, cut half pears from top to bottom in several thin parts.
10	The goal is not to cut half-part, but to make a kind of hand-held fan, you should start from top but leaving about half inch uncut. Put a half pear by service plate, and spread cuts to shape the hand-held fan.
11	Fill one plate side with custard sauce (crème anglaise) and the other one with cooking syrup. Decorate with a mint leaf.

Remarks

If you don't have agar-agar you can use corn-flour instead.

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