The Inventive Vegetarian: Recipe ReDux: Green Tea and Ginger Poached Pears

I need to confess something. I love tea. Like, it verges on addiction. On days that I actually manage to sit in my apartment to study, I brew myself a big pot of green tea and just make my way through it as the day goes on. My absolute favorite is green tea with jasmine. I don’t know what it is about that combination of flavors, but the earthy green tea is so nicely offset by the fragrant jasmine. It’s just the best, most calming thing ever.

Given my obsession with this green stuff, imagine my excitement when I found out that May’s RecipeReDux theme is cooking with tea! I immediately starting thinking about these green matcha cupcakes that have been on my “to make” list forever, or making a chai spiced anything. I started my search for ideas and almost immediately stumbled across this recipe from the Whole Foods website. It combines jasmine green tea and ginger – two of my favorite things! How could I not try it?

It turns out, this combo makes a delicious poaching liquid for the pears. I didn’t bother adding any sugar because pears are already deliciously sweet on their own. The result is a fragrant, slightly spiced, deliciously light dessert for any day of the week. The recipe comes together in a snap and stores nicely in the fridge, too. If you scooped a bit of ice cream on top of your pear, I would totally approve.

How do you take your tea?
Green Tea and Ginger Poached Pears
Adapted from Whole Foods, serves 6

Ingredients:

3-4 cups brewed green or green jasmine tea
1-2 tablespoon finely chopped ginger, depending on how much you like ginger
3 bosc pears

Directions:

1. Bring the brewed tea and ginger to a simmer. It should only take about 5 minutes.

2. While you wait, halve peel the pears. When the poaching liquid is simmering, add in the pears in a single layer and continue to simmer for 20 minutes.

3. Turn off the water and allow the pears to cool in their liquid, then transfer pears and liquid to a storage container.

4. Serve cold or room temperature with the liquid spooned over each pear.