Poached Pears

This is a light and delicious recipe and can me made ina  short space of time.

Ingredients:

200 ml red wine
50g caster sugar
2 cloves
1 cinnamon stick/powder
2 star anise
1 tsp vanilla essence/vanilla pod split
7 conference pears peeled with stalks
150g plain chocolate, chopped 85g/3oz unsalted butter

Method:

Add the wine, sugar, cloves, star anise, cinnamon and vanilla in a casserole dish. When the wine mix begins to simmer, add the pears and poach for about 30 mins. Turn often so all the pears get soaked well.
For the chocolate sauce, melt the chocolate and butter in a bowl placed over a saucepan of hot water. Mix well.
Drain the pears. Most recipes recommend reducing the wine mixture but as I’ve used less wine than most recipes, I didn’t.
Pour chocolate sauce over the pears and serve. Works well with vanilla ice-cream too.