This One Ingredient Upgrade Makes Poached Pears So Much Better

Pears are surprisingly versatile. Their mild but distinctive flavor works as well in a savory sauce for poultry as it does in a baked dessert tart, and one way to really bring out the unique taste of pears is to poach them. Poaching pears in red wine may be a classic way to add some class to your meal, but for a more aromatic flavor, an excellent choice is to use vermouth. 

At the Nassau Paradise Island Wine & Food Festival, we sought out the expert advice of acclaimed chef Michael White for tips for poaching pears in vermouth. He explained, "It's a fortified wine and so therefore it has a lot of flavor." White agreed that vermouth would be a fine addition to a poaching liquid for pears, suggesting that if you want to, you could even do a full swap and poach the fruit in straight vermouth. "It'd be really intense, that's for sure," he noted.

As anyone who enjoys a well-made martini can attest, the complex, botanical flavor of vermouth is full of bright herbal notes. In cooking, as in cocktails, there are plenty of ways to complement it. Adding orange or honey to the poaching mixture, for instance, can bring some sweet and fruity flavors. If you're a true cocktail aficionado, you could even try using sweet vermouth, adding in gin and Campari to make negroni poached pears. To soften the blow of the vermouth, White suggested serving the pears with something light and sweet, to offset the strong flavors. "I would do that with torrone or gelato," he said.

Whether or not you're using vermouth, Michael White offered some more advice on poaching your pears to perfection, and his top tip echoes advice you may have heard elsewhere — it's better not to pick fully ripe pears for poaching. 

"Having a pear that is not as mature, if you will, is a simple way to make sure that it's firm when you slice it," he said, suggesting that you can then present your pears by fanning out the slices. This also makes things easier in the kitchen. White notes that if your pears are very ripe, "you have to watch out how much you're going to cook them." Another piece of wisdom he offered is not to slice your pears before you poach them. "You cook them whole," he said simply, explaining that his method is to core and slice the pears after they're done. 

There are lots of tips out there on how to properly poach pears, but most of them boil down to consistency and flavor. You want to be able to slice your pears without them falling apart, and you don't want to overpower the taste of the fruit itself. Vermouth is an ever-popular fortified wine, and though it may have a striking flavor from those infused botanicals, a white vermouth should still have a light enough taste to complement the gentle nature of pears. After that, all you need is some dinner guests to serve them to.