Ingredients #

• 6 pears (Bosc or red D'Anjou are great, Bartlett work if they're firm & may
  need less cooking time)
• ~500mL red wine (you can get rid of a suspect bottle of undrinkably sweet Yellow Tail
  this way!)
• ~250mL sweet vermouth (Dolin works well for a dessert)
• 1 cinamon stick
• 1 tbsp vanilla essence
• half a dozen cloves
• a generous pour of maple syrup
• 1-2 satsuma mandarins
• Double cream or your local equivalent (can be hard to find in the US), or rich vanilla icecream

Methodology #

Peel the mandarins. Toss the fruit and a little of the peel into a pot,
discard the rest of the peel. Add the wine, vermouth, maple syrup and spices
(everything except the pears and cream) to the pot, and bring it to a gentle simmer.
Once ready, peel the pears and add them to the simmering wine. Cook, turning
occasionally to get unfirom infusion of the sauce, for 20-30 minutes depending
on pear size.

Serve in a dish or bowls, with the cream to make sure everything is decadent
enough!

This recipe seems to work for a lot of different fruit. Worth trying: quinces,
prunes, or plums, or several of those together...