Jasmine Tea Poached Pears

My entry for this month's TeaChef challenge came out quite nicely. I didn't do anything crazy like last month with the pizza. It happened to be my birthday on Monday and since my girlfriend was going to make me some angel food cake I was charged with making something spectacular to go with it. The result:

Jasmine Tea Poached Pears

I just love poached pears, if you haven't tried these yet, really you must. If you don't happen to like amaretto or are afraid of balsamic vinegar don't use them. I've made poached pears about two dozen times, each a little different than the last and the one thing I can assure you is that no matter what recipe you follow it will taste great. I've made it with white wine, red wine, amaretto, oolong tea, and now jasmine oolong tea. Every time it was awesome. I even tried to mess it up, that's how the balsamic vinegar got invited to the party. No luck, still great!

This particular version really surprised me. As it was cooking I could still make out a very faint vinegar smell and was a bit worried. Once it had cooked long enough to give it a little taste the only word that I could think of to describe it was "delicate". That's not really a word that frequents my vocabulary unless I happen to have destroyed something. I wasn't sure if the tea would be even the slightest bit noticeable but there it was tickling the tip of my tongue the way jasmine tends to do. After my senses returned I took another sampling to get an overall taste and another word came to my mind "delicious." I was tempted to continue sampling but I've been known to finish desert before I've finished adding ingredients.

This recipe comes in two flavors. Blue plate and red plate:

Nothing special to say about the ice cream. I think vanilla is the way to go. Feel free to argue.

As for the cake. Mmmmm, angel food. I've always been a fan of this particular treat as well, and once my girlfriend made it for me from scratch there was no going back. Sinning was over for me, I was a' heaven bound. We both agreed that it would be interesting to try to mix a little tea into the recipe but it tasted so go already that I didn't want to sour the experience by having to type out the recipe. It takes a bit of the fun out of it. But don't worry, the next time a tea looks like it might go well in angel food cake we're going for it anyway, you'll just have to wait a bit longer for that part.

I would usually have made all the links to the TeaChef page go directly to my recipe, but this month there are so many amazing treats you really have to look at them all. This is one time I certainly don't mind if you vote for one of the other creations. My hats off to everyone.

"Jasmine Tea Poached Pears
Jasmine Tea takes a trip down Pear lane with this delicate amaretto and balsamic vinegar treatment to poaching pears."

It really is a very easy thing to make and it's such a classy dessert that it fits in well for any "special" nights you may have planned. Come to think of it, the first time I tried this treat it was actually for breakfast...

Now go have a cup...