Poached pears in red wine

Serve a light and elegant dessert that looks great and captures the spirit of the season. Also, if your poached pears will be part of a holiday menu along with other dishes, you can prepare them a day or two earlier and have more time to prepare the rest of the dishes on the day of the holiday.

Ingredients for 8 poached pears:

• 1 liter of red wine
• 300 ml sweet dessert wine (I make it with Marsala, but you can use port wine or Vin Santo)
• 2 vanilla pods
• 4 asterisks anise
• 2 cinnamon sticks
• 250 g brown sugar
• 4 tbsp. honey
• peel and juice of 2 oranges
• vanilla ice cream

Preparation:

Put all the ingredients for the wine sauce and bring to a boil. Meanwhile, prepare the pears by peeling them carefully and preserving their stalks. Put the peeled pears in the wine and cook for 25-30 minutes. Let them get a beautiful red color and soften. Remove the pears and continue to cook the wine until the mixture is significantly reduced. Serve the pears in beautiful plates, flights with the fragrant wine sauce and a scoop of ice cream.