You could make this anytime, but it's fun to make at the end of Passover when the pears you buy before Chag are ripe enough. You definitely need something to look forward to by the end of a week of Passover!
Step one: buy pears about a week in advance of when you want to make this, unless they are already ripe. The recipe would be fine for up 10 ten pears, but you'd need to use a larger, flatter pot to accomodate them all.
Step two: buy a bag of dried fruit (apricots, prunes, etc.)
Pears are ripe when they are soft to the touch.
Mix the sauce ingredients in a larger pan .
1 1/2 c. sweet red wine
1/3 sugar
juice of one lemon
1 t. sugar
pinch of cardamon, if you have it
Carefully peel each pear with a vegetable peeler. it's easier if you go from the wide end to the taper. Leave the stem. No need to try to cut out the seeds & core.
Gently set the pears in the sauce.
Add about a half a bag (or more) of mixed dried fruit and place it on sides and top.
Simmer the fruit, covered, for about 20 minutes, basting two or three times. Then leave the pears/fruit in the sauce while they cool. They will gradually be tinted pink. You may need to lift them out and reposition them so they are evenly tinted.
The best way to serve them is in a curved saucer/dish . Pour some sauce over them when you serve them.
The remaining cooked fruit with the sauce is now a wonderful compote for the next meal! It's good cold or room temperature. I never could figure out what to use all the extra sauce for, so adding the dried fruit and making compote is a perfect solution.
This recipe is my modification of Gloria Greene's from a cookbook Judy Herzig-Marx gave me and is one of my favs.
