Spiced Pears

With a whole box of pears to work with, I was on a mission to find interesting ways to preserve them and spiced pears sounded wonderful. I could envision serving them with a variety of cheeses and the idea of a roast leg of lamb with spiced pears caught my partners fancy.

First you need to make the spiced vinegar and then combine this with your pears and other ingredients to complete the job.

Spiced vinegar ingredients

1 litre of white vinegar

12-15 whole cloves

4 large or 6 small bay leave

3 teaspoons ground coriander

3 teaspoons ground allspice

2 teaspoons ground cinnamon

2 teaspoons ground cardamom

1 teaspoon of ground ginger

Directions:

Place all of the above ingredients into a pot, give them a stir and bring this mixture to the boil. Once boiled, remove the pot from the heat, put the lid on and leave for 2-3 hours. Strain your spiced vinegar through a tight weave cheese cloth, or a double layer of loose weave cheese cloth.

Spiced pear ingredients:

2 cups of spiced vinegar

1 kilo sugar

½ a small lemon, thinly sliced

2 kilos of pears, peeled, cored and quartered.

Directions:

Combine the spiced vinegar, sugar, and lemon slices in a large pot and bring to the boiling, stirring frequently to ensure that the sugar dissolves.

Add the pears and return to the boil. Reduce the heat and simmer, just until the pears are tender. Be sure not to cook them for too long, as if you do they will break up when you are trying to get them into your jars.

Using a slotted spoon, remove the pears from the spiced vinegar mixture and place them in your hot sterilised jars.

Return the spiced vinegar mixture to the boil and cook down for another 10 to 15 minutes and until you see it start to thicken a little.

Cover the pears in the jars with the reduced spiced vinegar mixture, being sure to leave a head space of about 2cm. Cap with new lids and then process in the boiling water bath for 10 minutes.

Remove the jars from the boiling water bath with a jar lifter and place on a tea towel on the kitchen counter to cool. Once cooled, label and store in your pantry.

I hope you enjoy this recipe.