Recipe - Winter Fruits Cooked In Red Wine With Bay

1 Lemon
500 ml Red wine
450 g Caster sugar
1 Vanilla pod; halved
3 Bay leaves
1 Cinnamon stick
12 Black peppercorns
4 small Pears; (firm but not
; rockhard and not
; ripe enough to eat
; uncooked)
12 Nosoak prunes
12 Nosoak apricots

1 Pare a strip of lemon zest and halve the lemon. Put the lemon zest,
sugar, wine, vanilla pod, bay leaves and spices into a large nonreactive
pan and boil, stirring. Skim off the froth that comes to the surface.
Simmer for 30 minutes to infuse and leave to cool.

2 Peel the pears and rub with the cut face of the lemon to stop
discolouration. Bring the red wine syrup back to the boil, turn down to a
gentle simmer and add the pears.

3 Keep the fruit beneath the surface of the liquid by laying a piece of
grease proof paper over the pan and covering with a smaller lid to hold
them down.

4 Simmer for about 30 minutes, until tender, and then remove from the heat.
Add the prunes and apricots to the pears. Replace the lid and allow to cool
completely before refrigerating overnight. Serve with vanilla icecream or
creme fraiche.

Converted by MC_Buster.

Recipe by: Sophie Grigson's Herbs

Converted by MM_Buster v2.0l.