Pomegranates - How to prepare them
Pomegranate, a lovely musical word and a beautiful fruit.
I have adored pomegranates since childhood. When pomegranates were in season, I chose to spend my pocket money not on sweets or chocolate but on buying pomegranates. I even enjoyed the slow patient work of extracting the multitude of jewel like seeds - called arils. When preparing this fruit, you need have to protect yourself from the dark stains that pomegranate juice leaves, so rub your fingers and palms with lemon juice beforehand. Then spread old newspapers on the work surface where you are going to work, wear an apron and watch out for splatters flying on to your walls and floors - the riper and juicier your fruit is the more juice will spurt out! Before proceeding to the recipe, I have a handy Link to an "all about pomegranates" site but first I want to tell you what I do differently than is described there. To open the fruit up, I take a small sharp knife and cut a shallow cross into the top of the fruit. Using both hands I then poke my thumbs into the openings and carefully prise the fruit apart in sections. For juicing I use my trusty potato ricer. I put a batch of arils in and squeeze ever so gently as this is a major spurt alert moment! I do this several times for the same batch of arils, opening up the ricer and stirring the seeds round with a spoon. I then scrape out the residue and proceed with another small batch. So before you try the recipe, the Link to the very useful web site is here.
