This is another fruit sauce that utilizes pears. I've found it goes great as a dipping sauce with my sweet potato latkes. The cilantro and lemon give it a great tang and freshness that melds with the softness and sweetness of the pears and sugar for a wonderful balance. The amount of cayenne is just enough to give it a small kick without making it uncomfortably spicy.

Ingredients

2 oz. lemon juice
2 pears
1 cup water
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 bunch fresh cilantro leaves (or 1/4 cup or so dried chopped cilantro)
1/4 tsp cayenne pepper

Preparation

Peel, core, and dice the pears. If using fresh cilantro, strip the leaves from the stems and finely chop the leaves.

Warm a pan on the stove. Add the lemon juice, let it warm. Add the pears. Let the pears soften in the lemon juice a few minutes, stirring occasionally. Add the cilantro and let everything simmer a few more minutes, stirring occasionally.

Add the water and cayenne. Bring to a light boil. Sowly add sugar, stirring as you do. Return mixture to a light boil and let it simmer uncovered for 20 minutes.

Remove the mixture from the heat and let cool for 10 minutes. With a wand blender, blend so that about 1/4 of the pear pieces are pureed (thickens the sauce), but leaving a generous portion of the pear as chunks.

Spoon into small bowls as a dipping sauce, or cool and serve over ice cream (preferably a vanilla and caramel swirl).

This entry was posted on Thursday, November 30th, 2006 at 3:21 pm and is filed under Cooking & Recipes, Home Life. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.