Go to the Recipe: Red Wine Poached Pear
Is the strong vacuum necessary for compression and/or infusion, or will a ziploc + Archimedes work?
Evan – Vacuum compression does require a vacuum chamber. It relies on reducing the pressure surrounding plant foods to cause vacuoules inside the plant cells to burst. Edge sealers and improvised techniques like water displacement won't do the job.
I do a very similar treatment with apples, fresh apple juice, and a little vanilla.
Best suggestion for those of us without a vacuum chamber? Do you think the local grocery store would do it or would it violate some kind of health code?
One question can I use food saver bags like the one used for vacuum sealer? Using my new vacuum chamber machine. I saw a video of a guy vacuum packaging a fish doing that outside the chamber.
Ulf — Absolutely. If you use a FoodSaver-type sealer, we recommend that you freeze the liquid solid, then add it to the bag and seal it. This way the liquid won't be sucked into the sealer.
Thanks Chris, but what I mean is the opposite. I have the bags from an old Food Saver machine and I want to use it in my new Henkelman vaccuum chamber machine. No problem?
Ulf — Those bags are perfectly find in a chamber sealer. You should have no problem.
Hi Chris, I understand that to get vacuum compression one needs a chamber system. So two questions: 1) are the results one achieves with this dish meaningfully different without compression (i.e. with just an edge sealer) and 2) are there any effective lower cost vacuum chamber systems available? My sense is that they tend to run in the $800 or more range.
- originally posted by Bill Henderson
Bill — The vacuum compression will not make a meaningful difference to the outcome of this recipe. And edge-style sealer is fine. But I would recommend you freeze the liquid solid, then add it to bag and seal it. That way the liquid will not be sucked into the edge-sealer's pump.Sadly, there aren't really any inexpensive chamber-style sealers. The cost is mostly a function of the kind of vacuum pump that is needed to be able to quickly remove the large volume of air and achieve a very low pressure.
I dont have a sous vide equipment
You can totally do this recipe with nothing more than a digital thermometer and by sealing in a ziplock-style bag. Here's the basic idea of the improvised setup: http://www.chefsteps.com/cours...
Made this yesterday and used my Foodsaver. My water temp was not as well adjusted as I would like on a gas range but all in all it went very well. Glad I have 3 more to eat!
- originally posted by pfoven
I am in the midst of making this and am confused on one seminal point: how many pears does this recipe call for? The ingredients suggest the rather confusing "2 ea", but when the wine is reduced to 350 g, it then suggests putting 35g in each vacuum bag--- does this suggest the basic recipe will do 10 pears? I am confused. I have doubled the ingredients for the syrup thinking I would be making about 2 pounds of pears. Can someone help clarify this for me? Its rather odd with the exactitude of measurement to be unclear on the weight and/or number of pears to use!
- originally posted by John Ware
Hmmm. Everything seems to be going according to plan, except I had great difficulty vacuum sealing the bags without liquid rising to the top of the bag and compromising my seals. I am using a Caso VC 200. Should I have frozen the syrup overnight to avoid this problem. I ended up stopping the vacuuming when the liquid started to rise...didn't come out ideal, but with some weight holding down the bags, think I will be okay in the end...
Yes, edge-sealing style sealers have this problem (it's one reason professional chefs use big, expensive chamber sealers). Freezing the liquid so that it's added as a solid will solve the problem.
John — Looks like this was our mistake. The red wine sauce will make far more than needed for 2 pears—more like 8 to 10. We'll get this fixed asap, and sorry for the confusion.
Chris, Thanks for both of your messages! I had seen the suggestion of freezing oil for this purpose and was going to experiment with the syrup today to see if it would freeze. I have to say, though, the result was spectacular! We had 7 of our closest friends over to celebrate Chinese New Year's last night and it was the hit of the dinner! We used bosc pears, which seemed almost too firm - in fact, I ended up leaving them in the sous vide for over 1.5 hours. When served, they were still firm and the wine syrup did not permeate all that deeply into the flesh. However, the core was so perfectly cooked that most everyone ate the entire pear except for the stem!
John — Glad to hear that it worked out. Would love to see photos if you have them. You can post to our forum.
Gave this recipe a shot using the mini cooler sous vide method and it turned out great. I had some leftover syrup and the dish is worth making for that alone! It's great on ice cream!
Did this last week and served with panna cotta. Guests enjoyed em. Thanks for the technique.
Bill -I was a little unimpressed with the cost of a vacuum chamber sealer too but found a home/light commercial one that's suited all my needs. I did a google search and here's the results:https://www.google.com/search?...Then I went to a local restaurant supply and haggled with them til they gave me the lowest price! Works almost every time.
I found your site very educational and useful. Thanks for sharing this with us. Keep up the good job.www.gofastek.com
- originally posted by cindy_dy0121
Grant, any preference for the type of red wine to use? I'm guessing something not too tannic?
Depends on what you are going for. I like a tannic wine for this. Definitely something rich like a cab or Syrah.
- originally posted by Grant Lee Crilly
This recipe yields fantastic and impressive result, with a few tiny bumps: (1) definitely difficult to seal with edge vacuum sealers and it took several attempts to achieve a good vacuum seal; (2) sous vide time: I used red Anjou pears, and it took 80C 90min for them to feel sort of soft, but I think the doneness turned out right. This might be due to the density of the pear and the ripeness, so it is good the recipe mentioned "until soft when squeezed. TWO thumps up for developing this fantastic recipe!
Funny sentence in the instructions if you want to fix it...
''Cook the sealed pears sous vide at 176 °F / 80 °C for 30 minutes, or *** until soft to the when squeezed.*** ''
how about letting them sit in the bag after cooking. overnight or longer? so they can soak up the juices even more?
Can these be made a day or two beforehand? I'm looking at serving these for a dinner party of 36 people.
The text of the recipe does NOT call for whole cloves, but the video does, I just added ground cloves and I think it is ruined.
The time and temp was flawless. for my version I used Port wine with the spice mixture of cinnamon, peppercorns, cloves, ground vanilla bean and five star anise Plated with White chocolate "cheesecake" mousse and walnut cookie crumb..
while it couldn't hurt to try, I'd be concerned about picking up any off flavors of the wine. Try it and let me know how it goes.
my version is with straciatella and mint
I made some of these and accidentally left a couple in the bag at the back of the fridge for a month. I ate them and they were delicious. Bag was still sealed.
It's and N=1 study. Someone who knows more food safety might be surprised that I'm still alive.
Just made the sirup and wondering if its supposed to taste a little burned somehow? It took way longer to boil i down to 350 ml than the recipe suggests, so sped up the temp alittle bit. Wonder if this might have ruined it, or if it is easily burned tho the recipe does not mention anything about this.
ps: It freezes really easy tho, if you separate in to portions.
i use a sealed ziploc inside an edge sealed bag-- escaped liquid ruins the expensive edge sealing machine, and i pot all the very hard little fiorello peas in one bag. it works fine
Would like to know actually how much wine is there in 1.5 kg wine (one or two bottle)?
guys i would like to store in fridge for maximum time ,
advise please
Made this and served with goat cheese and toasted walnut, was absolutely delicious!
The specific gravity of wine is different from water and will depend on which wine you use but not enough to make a difference in this recipe. Just assume 1.5L (2 bottles).
1 liter of water weighs 1 kg so 1.5 kg is 1.5 liter or 150 cl (centiliter) or 1500 ml (milliliter). I think wine usually has cl on the label. And a normal bottle of wine is 75 cl.
Nice
3g of ground nutmeg, isn't that too much
No
This worked amazingly! I used cab sav so the sauce had a bit if a bitter / tannin-y background taste (worked nicely)(I added a bit of extra sugar to my syrup though). I had made the basic creme brulé earlier. So I served the pear, reduction syrup, creme brulé, and a scoop of plain vanilla ice cream. The 3 things really worked nicely together i.t.o. acidity, sweetness, richness, and different temperatures (my syrup was hot). Dinner guests were very impressed!
Where can I get that size sous vide plastic bag?
