Dried Fruit Poached In Port Recipes

Steps:

• Place the vin santo, sugar, cinnamon, cloves, vanilla bean, and zests in a large, shallow saucepan with 2 cups of water. Bring to a boil, then reduce the heat to low and simmer for 10 minutes.
• Peel the pears, leaving the stems intact, and scoop out the seeds from the bottom with an apple corer or melon baller. Lay half the pears on their sides in the poaching liquid and simmer for 20 minutes, carefully turning the pears once with a spoon. Remove with a slotted spoon. Poach the remaining pears in the same liquid. Snip off the hard stems from the figs with scissors. Add the figs, apricots, prunes, and the first batch of poached pears and simmer 5 to 10 more minutes, until the pears and the dried fruit are all tender.
• Chill the pears, dried fruit, zests, and poaching liquid. Remove the cinnamon, cloves, and vanilla bean before serving if you like.

Steps:

• Combine all the ingredients in a medium saucepan and bring to a boil. Turn the heat to very low and cover. Cook for about 30 minutes, at which point most of the port will have been absorbed.
• If the fruit is tender, it's done. If not, add 1/2 cup water, bring to a boil again, cover, and cook for another 15 minutes. Repeat once more if necessary.
• Remove the fruit with a slotted spoon, then strain the liquid to remove the spices. Serve a portion of the fruit warm, cold, or at room temperature with a spoonful or two of its juice.
• Substitute almost any sweet or neutral liquid for the port: water, oloroso sherry, red wine (add a tablespoon of sugar), sweet white wine, orange juice, and so on.
• If you prefer less-than-sweet results, add a squeeze of fresh lemon juice at the end of cooking.
• Vary the spices. Try a tiny grating of nutmeg in place of the allspice, peppercorns, and star anise, for example. Some coriander seeds are also nice.
• Since the preparation of this dish is absolutely foolproof, the challenge (and most of the fun) lies entirely in the shopping, especially since there is an incredible variety of dried fruits available, much of it of superhigh quality. In the course of fine-tuning this recipe, I tried not only the obvious prunes, figs, apricots, peaches, and pears, but also cherries, blueberries, strawberries, pineapple, and even banana. I tend toward the traditional but really enjoyed the tartness that dried pineapple added to the mixture and encourage you to experiment and find the mix of fruits that suits you best.

Steps:

• Tie allspice and peppercorns in a cheesecloth bag with kitchen string. Put bag in a large saucepan with remaining ingredients except pears and bring to a boil, stirring occasionally until sugar is dissolved. Reduce heat and simmer, uncovered, 15 minutes.
• Peel pears, leaving stems intact, and arrange on sides in poaching liquid. Simmer, uncovered, gently turning from time to time, until tender, 20 to 40 minutes depending on ripeness.
• Discard cheesecloth bag and carefully transfer pears with a slotted spoon to a bowl. Boil poaching liquid until reduced to about 1 1/2 cups, about 10 minutes. Discard ginger, cinnamon stick, and zest. Serve pears warm or at room temperature with syrup.