Honey Poached Pear with Citrus Glaze & Gorgonzola Cream

Time: approximately 2 hours 20 minutes; 25 minutes to peel the pears and prepare the poaching liquid, 35 minutes to poach the pears and make the gorgonzola cream, 1 hour to cool pears and reduce citrus to a glaze, 20 minutes to core pears and plate them.

Serves: 10

Inspired by: Last night I hosted a dinner with a blind tasting of 8 Bordeaux wines. We had a young Sauternes for after the dinner – Chateau Rieussec’s second wine. I tasted it once and remember it having very pronounced citrus flavors. I wanted to make a dessert that would be a nice pairing with the wine. I think the most interesting wine and food pairings are with similar flavors and textures,or with contrasting flavors or textures. In this case, I wanted to try to make a dessert that included both elements. I came up with this recipe as I do many – I read about 20 different poached pear recipes from various food blogs on the web to understand common themes. Then I turned to Alice Waters’ “The Art of Simple Food”. I love how she explains generally how to do something and then what you can add or substitute. So, I used her general recipe concept and then added some things that might make the dessert a better match with our wine (honey, orange and lemon juice with their zests, dried apricots). Then I started looking for poached pear recipes that used cheeses in some way – ideally blue veined cheeses because they are known to be a fantastic contrast with Sauternes. One of Emeril Lagasse’s recipes uses Sauternes in the poaching liquid and has a Gorgonzola mixture that is stuffed in the pears. He mixed Gorgonzola together with cream cheese to make it creamier. I liked that concept and decided to mix the Gorgonzola with mascarpone because I like its richness for desserts. Thank you to all my cooking teachers out there!

Supplies:

Large stockpot – mine is a 12-quart that was 8 inches in diameter and it worked because the water covers the pears.

Ingredients for Poaching Pears:

• 9 cups water
• 2 oranges
• 2 lemons
• 1 cup honey
• 1.5 cups sugar
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 10 Bosc or Bartlett pears- stems in tact – firm and not too ripe
• 10 dried apricots

Ingredients for Gorgonzola Cream:

• 1 cup (about 8 ounces) crumbled Gorgonzola, softened
• 1/2 cup mascarpone
• 2 teaspoons honey
• ¼ teaspoon salt
• ¼ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
• ¼ cup slivered almonds (optional for garnish)

Preparation:

• With a cheese grater, grate the outer skins of the oranges and lemons (larger pieces of “zest” will look prettier in the final glaze).
• Then juice the oranges and the lemons. (Don’t throw away the juiced lemons – they’ll still be useful.)
• In a large stockpot combine the water, sugar, honey, citrus juices and zests, and vanilla over medium-high heat and bring to a boil, stirring until the sugar is dissolved.
• While the poaching liquid is heating, peel the pears, leaving the stem intact. Rub the pears with the juiced lemon pieces after peeling each one to keep them from oxidizing and discoloring. Cut a small slice off the bottom of each pear so they can sit upright.
• When the poaching liquid comes to a boil and the sugar is dissolved, add the pears and simmer, covered, until tender. If you keep the pears whole, this will take approximately 30-40 minutes for large, fairly firm pears. The pears may float up, so every now and then, move them around so all of the pear gets some time in the poaching liquid.
• While the pears are poaching, in a small mixing bowl combine the Gorgonzola, mascarpone cheese, honey and salt and pepper and mix until thoroughly combined. Taste the mixture and feel free to add more mascarpone and honey if you’d like it to be a bit richer. Transfer the cheese mixture to a pastry bag fitted with a plain tip (or a plastic bag with the corner cut off).
• When the pears are tender, use a slotted spoon to carefully remove them from the poaching liquid and transfer to a plate. Allow to cool standing upright. Remove the apricots as well to a separate dish. Return the poaching liquid to a boil and cook until liquid has reduced to a syrup. This can take quite a while – possibly up to an hour.
• Set syrup aside in a small bowl or until cooled to room temperature.
• Once the pears have cooled, use a melon baller to carefully remove the inner core of the pears, working from the bottom of the pears, and being careful to not puncture the sides or top of the pears. Ideally no seeds or rough core will remain.
• When you are ready to assemble your dessert plates, put each pear on a plate and one of the poached apricots near it. Pipe the Gorgonzola cream in a design around the pear and apricot. Top the cream with a few almond slivers. Spoon a bit of the glaze over the pear. This is not a sticky sweet dessert, but if you’d like it to be sweeter, use more glaze.
• Alternatively, you can pipe the Gorgonzola cream into the cavity of the pears.
• Serve at room temperature with your favorite Sauternes or other white dessert wine.

Wine Suggestions: This recipe was designed as a pairing for a young Sauternes with citrus flavors and it worked well. When pairing wine with dessert, it’s best if your wine is sweeter than your dessert. This turned out to be a fairly light, not-to-sweet dessert and the pairing worked well. The pear tasted fantastic with the contrast of the Gorgonzola cream, and the Sauternes was fantastic with that contrast too. We enjoyed this with a 2007 Carmes de Rieussec, Sauternes.