Poached Pear Tart Recipe

Chinese New Year is just around the corner, and it's the perfect occasion to add some festive redness to the house with this dessert. Poaching these pears filled the kitchen with the sweet aroma of simmering red wine, and it was nostalgic of all the times I made mulled wine. How the time have passed! Has it really been already two years?

To get this tart to look like that is a multi-step process. Drape dough over the poached pears, bake the tart until golden brown, then flip the tart out onto a serving plate (and preferably to great applause). 

Here you may wonder, but Calvin, is it really such a great idea to flip the tart over at a high speed, when there's hot red wine syrup inside? If you do, your sense of self-preservation is indeed commendable, (and to which I would admit) may be more astute than mine. David cautioned that flipping over the tart requires a bit of courage and oven mitts. After flipping my tart around, I think he neglected to mention an apron and a visor as well. (Okay, maybe it's just me...) It made me pretty glad I dilly-dallied around the tart setting up photography props beforehand, which gave some extra time for the syrup to cool from their initial lava-of-Mustafa temperature.

A washed face and a change of clothing later, the cake pan was eased off to reveal the deep red pears. The tender, flakey tart was the perfect vehicle for the pears, though it demands that the tart to be eaten warm out of the oven, before the now-bottom tart turns soggy from the red wine syrup. (Although, to give it credit, though the dessert turned into an unphotogenic thing a few hours after, the tart still remained tender to the bite.) Chalk this recipe up as another winner from David! 

I'm no expert in making desserts, and so I'm definitely the perfect candidate to say this: if you're not confident of flipping over a syrup-based pie tart, and if you like crisp, tender crusts to remain crisp and presentable after a few hours instead of looking soggy and a little sorry, then feel free to ignore this Tarte-Tatin presentation style. You could instead cut the poached pears into smaller pieces, divide them into individual ramekins and top each ramekin off with a tart dough and baking them. Everybody gets an individual portion, which will be easy to also spoon out of. (And substantially less likely to result in first-degree burns for the poor baker.) Which I'll be doing from now on, thank you very much.  

Poached Pear Tart  
Adapted from Red Wine Poached Pear Tart by David Lebovitz 
6 to 8 servings

INGREDIENTS
========
The pears
1/2 bottle (375ml) fruity red wine
125ml (1/2 cup) water
50g sugar
40g (1/8 cup) honey
2 slivers of fresh lemon
1/2 cinnamon stick
a few turns of black pepper
1kg pears (about 4 medium-sized pears)

The dough
90 g (3 ounces) unsalted butter, cut into pieces
1 tablespoon vegetable oil 
3 tablespoons water
1 tablespoon sugar
1/8 teaspoon salt
150 g (5oz, or 1 slightly-rounded cup) flour

STEPS
========
The pears
1. Combine red wine, water, sugar, honey, lemon, cinnamon, and black pepper in a large pot and place over medium heat.

2. Meanwhile, peel the pears with a vegetable peeler. If making individual ramekins, to cut into quarters or eighths. If making a tarte-tatin style pie, just slice them in half lengthwise and remove the pits. 

3. When the red wine mixture is nearly boiling, slowly immerse the pears into the poaching liquid. Cover the pot incompletely with the lid sitting at an angle, so the steam may escape. Simmer and poach the pears over low heat for about 15 minutes, turning the pears every so often so are equally submerged in the red wine. Cook until they are soft. The tip of a paring knife should go in all the way through easily. Do not overcook!

4. Remove the pot from the fire, and remove the pears and let cool. Discard the lemon and cinnamon stick. Let the syrup cool until tepid before then pour it over the pears. (This prevents the pears from being submerged in the hot syrup for too long, which may overcook the pears. Cover the mixture and and refrigerate the pears for 1 to 3 days.

The dough 
5. Preheat the oven to 210º C

6. In a medium-sized ovenproof bowl, such as a Pyrex bowl, combine the butter, oil, water, sugar, and salt.

7. Place the bowl in the oven for 15 minutes until the butter is bubbling and starts to brown just around the edges.

8. When done, remove the bowl from oven (and be careful, since the bowl will be hot and the mixture might sputter a bit), dump in the flour and stir it in quickly, until it comes together and forms a ball which pulls away from the sides of the bowl. 

When ready to assemble
9. Preheat the oven to 375ºF (190ºC.) Distribute the pears in the ramekins, and then, drizzle the red wine syrup over the pears. 

10. When the dough is cool enough to handle, smoosh a piece of dough flat with your hands and drape it over each ramekin.

11. Bake until the dough is a deep golden brown, about 10-15 minutes for ramekins, and about 20-30 minutes for one tart. Remove from oven and let cool on a wire rack, for 10 to 15 minutes.

12. Serve warm. 

Notes: 
Use a pear that is firm when ripe, such as Bosc, Conference, Winter Nellis, or Anjou. 

How to poach pears from David Lebovitz

Additional leftover syrup can be stored in the refrigerator for a few weeks. It can used to dribble over fresh orange slices with pomegranate seeds, to enliven a fruit salad, or even drizzled over yogurt. Leftover wine syrup can drizzled over the tart. 

If not inclined to eat a pie (you monster you), and especially if you live in a hot humid environment that's not conducive to pie-making, using these poached pears in Marrion Burro's torte is wondrous.