Sous Vide Poached Pears

September 27, 2010

Sous Vide Poached Pears

Halved pears go into a sealed bag with a reduced red wine syrup - cinnamon, cloves, vanilla, a little sugar - and spend half an hour or so in a water bath held at one exact temperature. What comes out is tender all the way through but still holds its shape, evenly cooked from the skin to the core rather than soft at the edges and firm in the middle the way a simmering pot tends to leave things - stained a deep garnet by the wine, warmly spiced from the cinnamon and cloves, and gently sweet rather than sugary. The same liquid that flavored the pears in the bag gets reduced again afterward into a glossy syrup, so nothing goes to waste and nothing needs a separate pan.

Poached pears are an old, simple dessert - pears cooked gently in wine or syrup until tender, a fixture of French home cooking long before anyone had a name for sous vide. The precision-cooking version doesn’t change the idea, just the execution: a stovetop poach means watching the pot and guessing at doneness by eye, while a sealed bag in a temperature-controlled bath removes the guesswork. The bath can’t overshoot, so the pear can’t overcook, and the ten or fifteen minutes of slack in the cook time barely matters the way it would over direct heat.

The one real complication is that pears float. Left alone in the bath, they bob to the surface and cook unevenly, half submerged and half not, so a single layer, a weight, or a rack to hold them under the waterline isn’t optional - it’s the difference between an evenly cooked pear and one that’s tender on one side and raw on the other.

Serve the pears warm or chilled, whole or sliced and fanned out on the plate, with the reduced syrup spooned over. A dollop of whipped cream, crème fraîche, or mascarpone alongside rounds it out, and the pears keep well enough in their own syrup that this makes an easy make-ahead dessert for a dinner party - ready a day or two before it’s actually needed.

Ingredients

Serves 4

4 pears, ripe but firm (Bosc or Bartlett; about 170 g each), peeled, halved lengthwise, and cored
750 ml red wine, dry and medium-bodied (such as Pinot Noir or Côtes du Rhône; about 1 bottle)
¾ cup granulated sugar
1 cinnamon stick
4 whole cloves
1 vanilla bean, split lengthwise and seeds scraped (or 1 tsp vanilla bean paste)
1 pinch fine salt

Directions

Peel the pears, halve them lengthwise, and scoop out the cores with a melon baller or teaspoon, leaving each half smooth and cup-shaped.

Combine the wine, sugar, cinnamon stick, cloves, and the scraped vanilla seeds and pod in a saucepan with a pinch of salt. Bring to a simmer over medium-high heat and let it reduce by about half, 15 to 20 minutes, then strain out the solids and let the liquid cool to room temperature, or chill it briefly over an ice bath.

Heat the water bath to 176°F (80°C).

Arrange the pear halves in a single layer in a vacuum bag, or a zip-top bag sealed with the water-displacement method, and pour in the cooled poaching liquid. Submerge the bag in the bath, weighting it down or setting it under a rack - pears float, and an unweighted bag cooks unevenly as they bob at the surface.

Cook for 30 minutes, checking doneness by gently squeezing the bag from the outside; the pear should give under light pressure but still hold its shape. Give firmer or underripe pears up to an hour.

Lift the bag out of the bath and set the pears aside. Strain the poaching liquid into a small saucepan and simmer over medium heat until it’s syrupy enough to coat the back of a spoon, about 10 minutes.

Serve the pears warm or chilled, whole or sliced and fanned out, with the reduced syrup spooned over the top.

Notes

Ripeness matters more than the clock here: a ripe but firm pear is done at 30 minutes, while a firmer or underripe one can take up to 60 minutes to reach the same tenderness. Judge by feel - a gentle squeeze through the bag should meet a little resistance and then give, rather than staying hard or collapsing.

For a drier, more concentrated result, skip the wine bath entirely. Rub the pear halves with a compound butter (butter, sugar, vanilla, and a pinch of ground star anise), bag them individually with half a vanilla bean each, and cook at 185°F (85°C) for 60 to 90 minutes. The pear cooks mostly in its own released juice plus the butter, for a firmer, more pear-forward result than the wine version.

To serve cold, chill the sealed bag in ice water for 15 minutes right after cooking, then refrigerate for up to 2 days before serving.

If the cook runs a full hour or longer, double-bag the pears rather than relying on a single seal - the extended time in a hot bath raises the odds of a seam giving out partway through.