Pomegranate Time

Check out those big red globes piled in your supermarket bins. They’re pomegranates and their season is now. Bursting with hundreds of ruby-colored seeds, they’ve worked great for centuries as a fertility symbol, but they’re a royal pain to eat. Pomegranate Molasses to the rescue.

The thick, garnet colored syrup made from those juicy kernels packs all the fruit’s tangy complexity into tablespoon format. Pomegranate molasses was always called dips roman in my house and it’s traditionally been a staple of Middle Eastern and Mediterranean cooking. Today, it’s sometimes called Pomegranate Concentrate and you can find it in Whole Foods and many ethnic markets, as well as online. Use it to glaze poultry, make a salad dressing (see my recipe for Tangy Middle Eastern Salad,) or punch up a pot roast. I guarantee your guests will say “What IS that?”