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Poached Pears with Chocolate Raspberry Sauce Recipe Testing

posted on March 2, 2009

I love to cook. I always have. Yet, with everything else going on in my life I never seem to have the time to try new recipes. That being said, when I heard my good friends were putting together a Gilded Fork Cookbook and were looking for people to test out the recipes I jumped right on the chance.

I figured I’d write a post about the process and take some photos as well. It reminded me why I’m not a food photographer, but I still had fun and was pleasantly surprised with how the final presentation picture came out.

The recipe I chose was Poached Pears with Chocolate Raspberry Sauce. The kids got in on helping me make it.

The first thing we had to do was to peel some pears. I had never done this before but of course it’s not that hard of a task to do.

Gilded Fork Cookbook Testing - Poached Pears with Chocolate Raspberry Sauce

I’ve also never poached a pear, so standing them up in the pot and filling it with the lemon zest, wine and other ingredients made for an interesting little cauldron of fun.

Gilded Fork Cookbook Testing - Poached Pears with Chocolate Raspberry Sauce

Even though I had taken the extra suggested tip of cutting a flat bottom in the pears, they still all fell over once the pot got simmering. I turned them a bit just to make sure they got evenly cooked.

Gilded Fork Cookbook Testing - Poached Pears with Chocolate Raspberry Sauce

Now, I’m not sure how soft a poached pear is suppose to be, but they felt way to firm after the time on the recipe so I gave them an extra 10 minutes. They were still harder then I would have liked. I’m wondering if it is because I didn’t core them (couldn’t figure out how to while leaving the stem on the top as directed) and the juice couldn’t get inside.

Once the pears were done, I put them on a plate and outside in the frigid night air to cool down while we got the ingredients together to make the sauce.

I’m also a big fan of dark chocolate so we had a couple of half eaten bars that we mixed in this recipe. I was also happy to find good raspberries at the store. You never know this time of year what you might fine.

Gilded Fork Cookbook Testing - Poached Pears with Chocolate Raspberry Sauce

Gilded Fork Cookbook Testing - Poached Pears with Chocolate Raspberry Sauce

Emily helped me make the sauce and she found the concept of a double boiler pretty neat. It is always more fun to have an assistant in the kitchen.

Gilded Fork Cookbook Testing - Poached Pears with Chocolate Raspberry Sauce

I had no idea how to plate these up since there were no instructions in the recipe so Emily and I got creative.

Gilded Fork Cookbook Testing - Poached Pears with Chocolate Raspberry Sauce

The verdict? Being the first time I’ve ever had a poached pear it was different then I imagined. I liked them, but I think I would have liked them more if they were softer. I also think I want to try making them again but without the wine to see if more of the fruitiness of the pear comes through.

I can’t wait to try my next recipe I’m going to test for them.

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Categories: Photography
  • http://randomnimities.com Susan

    Hi CC! You know me as Randomnimities on Twitter. As somebody who has done poached pears in pastry class in culinary school, I’ve got a few ideas for you. First of all, the way to core the pear leaving the stem on is to scoop the core out of the bottom with a melon ball scoop. Also, did the recipe call for white wine? I’ve always seen this done with red and the pear takes on a purplish color. I actually like seeing the white pear since the acidity of the poaching liquid keeps it from turning brown and now I’ve got ideas of a platter of a mixture of poached pears in red and white wines. How long did it say to poach them? Because we had to keep ours going for hours with the water so low we didn’t even have bubbles.

    A double boiler that would be easier to work with would be a metal mixing bowl sitting on top of one of your pots since the top part containing the food can’t touch the water underneath. That might simplify things for you next time.

    Also, I loved, loved, loved your plating! Great job! Looks like you’ve got some excellent kitchen help! ;-)

  • http://theadventuresofrosyblue.blogspot.com/ Rosy Villa

    Thank you! This recipe looks very easy. I’m going to have to try it soon. BON APPETIT!!!

  • http://www.cc-chapman.com C.C.

    Thanks for the suggestion. I never thought of coring them that way. Makes sense.

    It was white wine that they were poached with so like you said they didn’t change color.

    And yes, I love my assistant as well. She keeps me smiling in the kitchen always.

  • http://www.culinarymedianetwork.com Chef Mark Tafoya

    Hi CC, sounds like a fun time with Emily! To answer your questions:

    The main reason your pears didn’t get soft enough is that it’s hard to find a truly RIPE pear this time of year. The ones we get usually come from South America, and they are picked horribly underripe, and then transorted long distances, so they go into a semi dormant state. And yes, the coring could have helped. I’ll definitely have to ad a Chef’s Note about how to core them, shouldn’t have assumed that.

    We did include plating ideas, but the “service” portion of the recipe spills onto a second page, so maybe you didn’t print that out.

    Thanks so much, and I’m loving the process photos. We may have to include some of them.

    -Chef Mark

  • http://www.cookingdownunder.com Pat

    I’m a tester, too. I just love the look of concentration on little Emily’s face. She can come work in my kitchen anytime!!

  • http://www.RedEmberMarketing.com/marketingbbq Eric Salerno

    CC,
    Who knew we had so much in common, or how small the web is. FYI, we met briefly after you participated on a panel at Babson College a few weeks ago. Loved the cooking pics, and it’s crazy how I ended up on a marketing guy’s blog, and end up seeing a post about cooking the day after I choose Marketing BBQ (http://www.RedEmberMarketing.com/MarketingBBQ as the name/theme for my marketing/personal blog. (let me know what you think of the concept). And I hope my son (who is 2) and soon-to-arrive daughter (July) enjoy cooking as much as Emily some day!

    Before I go, I have to say, the story about how I ended up on your site is just too good to keep to myself – Thought you (and your readers) might enjoy hearing how I ended up (back) on your site:
    Recently, I have been talking with David Crouch, owner of Ten24 Web Solutions (http://www.ten24web.com). While on his site, I noticed that he had participated on a podcast hosted by Eric Glazer (http://marketingstudio.net). Eric happened to also host Becky McCray (http://www.smallbizsurvival.com) in a separate podcast. Since I have been investigating bringing Coworking to Chelmsford, MA, I thought I’d check out what her website was about. There, I found a Network Solutions document on small town business ideas (http://www.mccrayandassoc.com/downloads/BizIdeaBooklet.pdf – pg 10) that credited you with the an idea to “turn everything into a Lending Tree” model. Imagine my surprise to see your name in there just a few weeks after you were at Babson! So I head over to your blog, and needless to say, I was surprised to see the GoDaddy coupons you’re offering! Even more surprising though, was that you included a cooking entry in your blog only a day or two after I got Marketing BBQ set up. As if that wasn’t cool enough, it’s on poached pears, which I had just sent an email about to a friend two days ago (I haven’t tried my recipe yet, but it calls for Zinfandel, vanilla beans and surprisingly, black peppercorns). Ok, serendipity x100 is inspiring, so time to go try to us that as inspiration for something productive – although I hope this comment/shout-out leads to something else!
    -Eric

  • http://www.marketleveragetv.com MLDina

    OMG you’re making me hungry! I hardly ever cook, but love to bake. I think I could qualify the recipe as baking, since it’s dessert. Any other favorites?

  • http://www.hippiespelunker.com Lisa Marie Mary

    Although not exactly to your tastebud’s liking, what a beautiful presentation!! Very impressive. And I’m surprised peeling them wasn’t hard – that’s what I said when I saw the pic, before I read – ‘Man, I bet peeling ‘em would be hard.’