Bottled Fruit: Belgian Pears recipe
Posted by Fiona Nevile in Desserts, Jam Jelly and Preserves | 127 comments
Our pear tree
I breezed onto the internet just now to see entries for Belgian Pears. I thought that they could be a traditional dessert. Well, in Belgium, they are not. Which is a shame, as anyone, from the Belgians to the Bengalese would love this dessert.
Forget any memory of dull bottled fruit. This wonderful concoction just happens to be preserved in a jar. We tend to include this for dinner parties when we’re feeling under pressure. Many jars of this superb non-alcoholic scrumptiousness are patiently sitting in our barn, waiting to be opened and enjoyed.
Our own pears have been rotten this year. Barely a handful from the entire tree. So I drove over to the farm shop at Westley to stock up for this recipe. They had several sorts of pears but none of their own. The lady in the shop explained that their pears had failed this year, due to lack of water. They had a choice, water the potatoes or the pears.
This is a pity as the Westley pears are the best that I’ve found to buy around here. Their potatoes are pretty good too. This is the first year that I’ve tried them and it’s well worth dropping in for a bag if you’re passing. They are just like home – growns.
The recipe for Belgian Pears was given to me by my generous friend Jo. It’s great if you have a glut of pears but even if we have a poor year, I buy pears for this recipe. Belgian Pears are a superb finale for a special meal. They taste very grown up with a real of depth of flavour. Friends find it hard to believe that they are not laced with some exotic liqueur.
We put the pears into le parfait jars that we seal in a bain marie (how do I seal Le Parfait jars? See tricks and tips below). We always make a few small jars for Christmas presents. Belgian Pears last a good year; we are still enjoying the massive batch that I made last October.
| Belgian Pears recipe |
- 2 kilos of pears
- 500g of white granulated sugar
- 150 ml of white wine vinegar
- Wash and peel the pears. Leaving the stalk on.
- Melt the sugar in the vinegar and any pear juice in a large heavy bottomed saucepan.
- Add the pears and simmer gently with a lid tight fitting lid for three hours.
- Remove the lid and simmer for a further three hours with the lid off.
- Pot into sterilised jars and seal in a Bain Marie.
- Test the seals when cold before labelling and storing.
- N.B. You need 2 kilos of pears. 1 kilo doesn’t make enough juice if you are going to bottle them.
Tips and tricks:
How do I sterilise Le Parfait jars and rubber rings?
Le Parfait jars can be used over and over again, as long as they are washed and sterilised just before use. Use new rubber rings every time the jar is reused. (Rubber rings are available from good kitchen shops. Living in the country, I tend to buy up a few packs if I see them so as to have them to hand when we start bottling).
The sterilising method that we use is simple. Just before making the food, I quickly wash and rinse the jars and place them upside down in a cold oven. Set the temperature to 160c/140c for fan assisted. When the oven has reached the right temperature I turn off the heat. The jars will stay warm for quite a while.
I only use plastic lined lids for preserves as the all-metal lids can go rusty. I boil these for five minutes in water to sterilise them. If I use Le Parfait jars, I do the same with the rubber rings.
How do I vacuum seal Le Parfait jars?
Fit a new rubber ring to your washed and sterilised Le Parfait jars, and fill to the level indicated on the jar, (this will be a line on the side of the jar).
Put the jars into a deep saucepan and put an old tea towel between them so that they can’t jiggle together and break.
Pour water to a level that generously covers the jars (at least 2 inches above the lids). Bring the water slowly to the boil. When the water boils turn off the heat and let the jars stand submerged until cool.
This method works well for us and we have never found a bad seal when we come to open the jars. It’s hard to prise the lids off if there is a vacuum seal. I usually give the lids a bit off a tug to check the seals. We sometimes use glass preserving jars with screw top lids (not old jam jars but a Kilner type of jar).
Some people think that these are safer to use as you can easily see whether you have a vacuum as there is a small section in the centre of the lid that is concave if you have a obtained a good seal. Use the same method as outlined above.
USE THE INSTRUCTIONS ABOVE AT YOUR OWN RISK. ALL ‘CANNING’ /PRESERVING METHODS VARY SLIGHTLY FOR EACH TYPE OF JAR, SO TRY AND KEEP THE INSTRUCTIONS THAT COME WITH THE JARS IN A SAFE PLACE FOR FUTURE REFERENCE
Leave a reply
Hi Sarah
If you have very small jars you could halve or quarter them at the end of cooking time. I use Le Parfait jars to bottle these. Whole pears look very deluxe when served as a dessert at a dinner party – and these are definitely dinner party/special occasion food.
Hi, i’m just doing my pears now, but i’m wondering how to get them in the jars? Next time I do this can I cut them into quarters? If I can, does the cooking time change?
Hi Sarah
Of course you can but don’t forget to heat the jars in the oven as the preserves need to go into hot jars to make a good seal.
Hi, i’m just about to spend the rest of my day preserving some pears. Can I steralise my jars with milton tablets. We make a lot of homebrew and sterilise the bottles this way.
Hi Kate
I have only cooked these on the stove and the vinegar and sugar miraculously seem to expand and cover the pears every time. Perhaps the slow cooker is the wrong place to cook them. Our SC simmers very rapidly, whereas the stove can simmer very slightly – which is best for this recipe.
The pears when cooked are soft and smooth like ultra upmarket tinned pears.
Leave the stem and the star when peeling.
I made a batch of these yesterday in the slow cooker but I’m not entirely sure they came out right! The syrup tastes lovely, but it’s very thin and light coloured, not really gooey at all. And there wasn’t enough to cover the pears, either at the beginning or at the end, which means that the pears that were in the syrup have stayed pear coloured while the ones on top have gone dark brown and a bit dry looking – which I’m sure isn’t right! I’ve tasted one and it’s nice, but has a bit of a grainy texture – again, is that how they’re supposed to be or should they be soft and smooth?
Any ideas as to what I could do to improve things? I’m not sure I’d want to give these out as gifts at the moment! I know that the simmer wasn’t too high because they were in the slow cooker – I wonder if it was too low?
Oh and when I peel the pears, should I remove the base – the ‘flower’ bit? Thanks!
Hi Kerry
What bad luck. Poor you.
The colour of the liquid should be dark brown. The pears should be put into hot sterilised jars (finger hot not red hot)
I seal them in a bain marie to be extra sure that they are properly sealed. If you are bottling them in the UK you can test your seals 24 hours later by unclipping the jars and holding them over the sink by their lids. The bain marie step is one of choice.
The boiling water method gives you extra security. The jars have to be sealed – the metal will expand to allow the air to escape. Yes the jars have to be covered with water.
If you finish them off in the oven – no pun intended sit the jars in a deep roasting pan lined with newspaper, keep the jars two inches apart and leave the lids just open.
When you remove the jars from the oven only handle them with thick oven gloves and then clip or tighten the seals. 150 is far to high (it should be 140 or 120 fan.
Burnt eyebrows sound painful.
Have spent most of the day making these pears, with trepidation at first, leading to jubilation when it all seemed to go to plan, and after 6 hours had a potful of lovely gooey unctuousness. However! I filled up a hot Le Parfait type jar with the loveliness, and it sizzled and bubbled up in a crazy fashion. I clipped the lid down and in a sudden moment of recklessness, decided to go off message and seal the jars in a medium oven instead of the jar boiling palaver. The oven was already at 150 degrees, so I popped the jar in and pottered off. Five minutes later, there was a suspicious burning sugar smell and I opened the oven door to find sizzling sticky syrup everywhere. Aggghhhh. Then I made the fatal error of unclipping the jar, spraying myself and the entire kitchen in boiling pear syrup. AAAGGGHHHHHH. No major damage done, although if there are any late wasps around, I shall soon have a swarm of them about my face/hair. So…
1) What colour should the syrup be when the pears are ready?
2) Does it matter if they froth up when you put them in a hot jar?
3) Is the last ‘sealing’ part necessary? Isn’t the heat of the fruit, syrup, jar enough to seal?
4) Using the boiling water method of sealing – won’t water get into the jar? Does the jar really have to be covered over with water?
5) Does anyone know how to remove burnt sugar from eyebrows?
Hi Natalia
The pears need to be in the juice for so long to impart flavour and juice!
The end result is out of this world. A real dinner party dish.
Thank you! On the other hand maybe just simmering the syrup so long, without the pears and the attendent overcooking, then just heating the pears in it before canning would work.
But I still may do a simpler syrup with spices.
My peeler won’t do my pears. I must have a different type of pear. They are smooth when you eat them, not crunchy like an apple. I just canned pear chunks and slices yesterday. Only 7 quart jars due to constant interruptions from my family! 1 1/2 large boxes of pears and 8 boxes of apples await!