Recipes

Pears in Wine Sauce

Pears in Wine Sauce

Pears in a wine sauce
PEERES [1] IN CONFYT. XX.VI. XII.
Cury
Take peeres and pare hem clene. take gode rede wyne & mulberes [2] oþer saundres and seeþ þe peeres þerin & whan þei buth ysode, take hem up, make a syryp of wyne greke. oþer vernage [3] with blaunche powdour oþer white sugur and powdour gyngur & do the peres þerin. seeþ it a lytel & messe it forth.
[1] Peeres. pears.
[2] mulberes. mulberries, for colouring.
[3] Vernage. Vernaccia, a sort of Italian white wine. V. Gloss.

Pears in Greek-Wine Syrup
The Medieval Kitchen, p. 13.
2 1/4 pounds of pears
2/3 cup blackberries
1 bottle good red wine
1 bottle Greek muscat of Samos or other sweet muscat wine
4 Tbsp sugar
1 tsp ground ginger
Peel the pears, leaving them whole. In a stainless steel or other nonreactive saucepan, simmer them in the red wine together with the blackberries, about 20 minutes or until a needle can pierce the pears easily to the core; they should become slightly translucent.
Meanwhile, in another saucepan, combine the muscat, sugar, and ginger. Bring to the boil and reduce by half; the reduced wine should be syrupy.
Add the cooked pears to the muscat syrup and leave to cool.
To serve, pile the pears in a pyramid and top with muscat syrup.

Peza made the pears before the feast. To serve we cut the pears into rounds (purple on the outside, creamy white on the inside). These were fanned in a bowl and then drizzled with muscat syrup. We made 3 batches of this (30 pears). I don’t think any came back to the kitchen.

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