Preserving pears in juice makes for a handy breakfast or baking companion, long after the pear season has ended.
You can preserve just about any fruit using the Water-Bath method. In fact, I use the water-bath method a lot, particularly as my fool-proof way to ‘fix’ any preserves where the lids didn’t seal correctly. Let’s say it’s my backstop at times, as well as my first preference at other times!
Different fruits will have different levels of natural sweetness. This may dictate somewhat, the level of sugar syrup the fruit may be preserved in. It’s all down to personal preference although be aware that sugar does help in the preserving process as well as helping to maintain texture and colour.
Take nashi pear: they are a lovely fruit but not overly sweet so I went for a medium-heavy syrup to help preserve them and also give them a sweetener.
Note that when preparing the fruit ready to water-bath (washing, peeling, chopping), fruit may oxidise and brown quickly (such as pear). Lemon juice can help slow down this process.
Preserved Pear Pieces in Juice
Ingredients
- 1.5kg pear
- 1 cup lemon juice
- 5 cups water
- 2 cups white sugar
Method
- Wash fruit. Remove any bird-pecked or spoiled sections.
- Leaving skin on, quarter, core and drop into a saucepan containing bath of lemon juice and water while you prepare the rest of the fruit.
- When all the fruit is ready, put the saucepan over a medium heat and bring to the boil and simmer for 5 minutes (the fruit is firm, so it shouldn’t turn to pulp).
- In the meanwhile, prepare your sterilized jars and lids.
- Remove the saucepan from the heat and, using a sterilised slotted spoon, transfer the fruit into the prepared hot sterilised jars.
- Retain the lemon water and add white sugar, stirring until dissolved.
- Pour sugar syrup over the fruit, put on seal, screw on lid firmly (hand tight, not Superman tight).
- Rinse out saucepan (if you are using the same pot to water bath).
- Put your jars in the large pot so they don’t touch each other, fill the pot with water to the jars are submerged and covered by 2cm. Bring the pot to the boil (which will take around 20 minutes), then simply turn off the heat. Allow the jars to cool naturally with the water before removing if you are wanting a ‘stewed fruit’ texture, otherwise use a ‘jar lifter’ to safely remove the piping hot jars and let it cool on the bench.
