This is the ultimate Christmas dessert

Alain Caron takes you on a journey through France in The Bible of French Cuisine. Serve a classic onion soup from central France, make the most delicious Parisian-style pork chops, or travel to southern France for oven-baked coquilles Saint-Jacques.

Are you putting together a Christmas dinner but still have no idea what to do for dessert? Here you go: poached pears with pistachio sand. No difficult ingredients, it won’t take much work and it looks beautiful. Oh, and of course it’s incredibly delicious too.

Method

1. Peel the pears with a vegetable peeler, leaving the stalk attached. Cut away a piece of the core from the bottom.
2. Bring 750 milliliters of water to a boil in a tall, not-too-large pan with the cane sugar, star anise, cinnamon stick, vanilla pod, bay leaf, orange and lemon zest, and orange and lemon juice. Turn the heat down once the sugar has completely dissolved and place the pears in the pan. Let everything simmer gently for 30 minutes. Check whether the pears are tender; they must not become mushy. Remove the pears from the liquid—not by the stalk—and let them drain.
3. Reduce the liquid to a syrup and pour the syrup through a fine sieve.
4. Pour a layer of syrup into four deep plates. Roll the pears in the pistachios so they are largely covered, then stand them upright in the syrup.

Title: The Bible of French Cuisine
Author: Alain Caron
Publisher: Carrera
Price: €31.99