Pears Poached in White Wine

Earlier I posted a video of poaching pears in red wine. I love how the pears look with the deep red stain from the wine, but it's hard to get the pear uniformly colored. I decided to poach in white wine this time using 2 cups of sugar with 1 bottle of dry white wine. The flavor of the pears was somewhat thin due to the poaching process taking from the pear all those great flavors that make the poaching syrup so delicious. But if you serve the pears coated in a thickened syrup with vanilla ice cream, you get all the right flavors and textures in every bite. No video today, but I do have some photos.

Five Spice Chicken Recipe

Here I go again with another text entry. I'm just trying to keep my blog more current. I would post a video daily if I could, but that isn't physically, logistically or artistically possible! Anyway, I wanted to share the following recipe with you that I put to the test this evening.

First buy Five Spice or, better yet, grind your own. There are several different versions of five spice, Chinese, French, Tunisian, but you can experiment with either. Two recipes follow:

Tunisian
1T black peppercorns
1T cloves
1.5 t cardamom
1.5 t ground nutmeg (be careful, this is one of the reasons you want to use five spice sparingly. This can be cut back to .5 t without losing too much nutmeg flavor.)
1 t ground cinnamon

Place all in a spice (or coffee) grinder and process until powdery. The best coffee grinder I've found for both grinding coffee and spices is the basic Krups model.
Click here to view grinder - http://www.krupsonlinestore.com/product_detail.asp?T1=KRU+203%2D42&MENU=&SKW=coffee%20grinder

Chinese
2 t szechuan peppercorns, roasted in dry skillet over low heat until aroma released
8 star anise
6 cloves
1.5 T fennel seeds
1 T ground cinnamon

Place all in a spice (or coffee) grinder and process until powdery. Be careful when removing lid. The szechuan peppercorns could burn like hell if inhaled.


Slice 1# boneless chicken breast in half horizontally. Lay breast flat on cutting board and slice in half with blade of knife parallel to counter. Alternatively, place breast between two sheets of wax paper or disposable cutting sheets and pound gently with rolling pin.

Once you get the chicken to an even thickness of about 1/2 inch, coat on each side with five spice rub. Sautee over med-high heat in 1 T grapeseed oil. Place in pan right as oil begins smoking. Turn after 3 minutes on one side. Sautee another 2- 3 minutes, remove from heat, place on a warm plate and cover with foil for 5 minutes.

Serve with rice or cous-cous and a salad.

Poached Pears