Poires Belle-Helene
CATEGORIES
INGREDIENTS
  • Cooking Time: 20
  • Servings: 8
  • Preparation Time: 60
  • 1 bottle red wine
  • juice of 1 lemon
  • 1 vanilla bean, split
  • 1 1/2 cups sugar
  • 8 large Bosc pears, although any pear will do
  • one half-gallon Häagen-Dasz white chocolate raspberry ice cream or, if you prefer, vanilla ice cream
  • Somebody's Mother's Chocolate Sauce
DIRECTIONS
  1. In a saucepan, combine the wine, lemon juice, the vanilla bean, sugar and about 2 cups of water. Cover and cook until the sugar has dissolved.
  3. In another pan, blanch the pears for a couple of minutes, and then drop into cold water. Peel the skins gently with a small paring knife, leaving the stems. Set the pears upright in wine syrup and simmer until they are just tender. Remove them from the pot carefully so they don't bruise. Place them in a pyrex dish and refrigerate.
  5. Then turn the heat up and boil the syrup until it is reduced by half. Let it cool to room temperature and spoon it over the pears, basting often. The syrup will deepen the color of the pears.
  7. Allow to cool. Cut them in half, core them and leave the stems intact.
  9. For serving, scoop ice cream into a large bowl or large wine or brandy glass. Place one pear half (artfully) on top of the ice cream scoop. Top with warm Somebody's Mother's Chocolate Sauce.