Seasonal Eating for November

Chestnuts and clementines always mark the winter months for me – but one fruit that doesn’t get the attention it deserves is the pomegranate. So, this week we are looking at this amazing ingredient and how to use it.

Pomegranates have a short but completely delightful season. The seeds are sweet, tart, and fun to eat out of hand, plus they're a great addition to salads and other dishes. Pomegranates also have high antioxidant levels and are full of vitamin C and potassium. 

Look for plump, rounded pomegranates. They dry out and shrink when they get old. They do not ripen after they're picked and yet bruise relatively easily when ripe. So do be careful with them.

Table Talk: pomegranate comes from the Latin  pōmum "apple" and grānātum "seeded"
 

Chefs, such as Ottolenghi suggests using pomegranate molasses as a sauce for meat dishes. Cook lamb meatballs in stock, with pomegranate molasses and vegetables, or mix pieces of roasted chicken with pomegranate molasses, onion, potatoes and a bit of soy sauce.
 
While Ottolenghi says he is wary of ascribing miraculous health benefits to any one food, he is still a big fan of the fruit. “Pomegranates can transform the look of a dish, but they also punctuate salads or slow-cooked dishes with intensely sweet and sour notes,” he says. “In the Middle East, they grow in such abundance that if you have a tree, you have way more than you can use. My parents have two pomegranate trees in their garden and hardly use 10% of the yield.”

I really like the look of this Pomegranate Chicken recipe from Waves In The Kitchen. A sweet and tart pomegranate chicken that easily comes together in one single pan with minimal ingredients. This succulently tender and juicy chicken is just as perfect for entertaining as it is for a quick weeknight meal!