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Link to the ICSA Thread here. Thank you to our Chairman Shooting Blanks for hosting! I've eaten Pomegranates before, but never cooked with them, so this was an exploration, but I think it turned out great. I went with 6 "dishes" embracing the theme ingredient. But the best part was that I got to have a bunch of friends over to enjoy the food I made. And a preview of the finished dishes before I get into how I put them together.     Drinks Course - Pomegranate Old Fashioned I started off with a drink. This was the dish that technically took the longest as I made my own Pomegranate Bitters. At this point I thought I was just playing, so I didn't really take pictures. But it was pretty simple, put a bunch of bitter stuff in a jar with some sweet stuff too, then cover with Everclear for about two weeks, giving it a shake every day, and pushing down on the top of to help coax juice out of the pomegranate arils. The ingredients I used were the peel of 2 oranges and cardamom for the bitter, about an inch of ginger, sliced thinly, and then top off with as many pomegranate arils will fit in your mason jar. Push down, then cover with everclear. Taste every couple of days until it's the right amount of bitter, then bottle it up in a bottle with a dropper for ease of portioning out. Next up to make was a pomegranate lime syrup. For this one I started with some Pomegranate Juice, the juice of 5 limes, about an inch and a half of ginger crushed and some sugar. I didn't need the sugar, it was sweet enough by the time it cooked down. But reduce it until it is syrupy. To about 1/3rd volume is what I ended up doing. Strain out the ginger and you have a sweet and tangy syrup. Then you make you garnish, watch a YouTube video on how to make an orange twist, then do it poorly, add it to a skewer with a cherry and hold for later.  To assemble, add some ice to a cocktail shaker, a generous pour of rye, some of the syrup and 4-6 drops of bitters per drink you are making. Shake vigorously. Pour in a rocks glass over ice, top off with a splash of lime seltzer and garnish with orange and cherry. Appetizer Course Pomegranate Kale Pie The inspiration for this dish came from Spanakopita, but I was using spinach in a later course, so I went with kale here instead. In the end, it totally could have been Spinach, I was just overthinking it, but it was real good. Oh, hey, I actually took a picture of my mise here.  Start with cooking down your kale, start with some olive oil in the pan, but as it cooks down, you want to add more in. You want to keep the bottom of the pan from being super dry here too, so I kept adding in a splash of pomegranate juice as I went, you could use water or stock here as well, but I thought might as well amp up the pomegranate flavor if I had it, ya know. If you get the precut prewashed kale, separate out the largest of the stems and pull off the leafy bit, it's a bit too thick for cooking down well. I did this while it was cooking down and burned my fingers, but if I was prepared it wouldn't have been a big deal.   Transfer to a large bowl, then in the same pan, sauté some diced red onion until soft, add in garlic and a good amount of parsley. Once it is softened and fragrant, add in to your bowl of cooked Kale.  Let cool for a little bit, because after this you are going to squeeze it to get all of the excess moisture out. You can use a cheese cloth, but I just used my hands like an animal. Season well with salt, fresh cracked pepper and turmeric. Add in more parsley, so you get some that hasn't cooked down, and a whole bunch of arils. Mix well, then remember you forgot the cheese, add in feta, and mix again. Crack some eggs in there to help hold it together and mix some more.     I made this the night before and kept in the fridge. The morning of, I portioned out a generous dollop onto some filo dough, cut longwise in half, about 4 sheets thick, and folded into triangles. Brushed with an egg wash and sprinkled with sesame seeds and some salt.   Bake at 375oF for about 30 minutes.  This dish is the one that got the most compliments and people asking for the recipe. It was really good. Salad Course - Spinach and Arugula Salad with Goat's Cheese and a Pomegranate Vinaigrette Start by making your vinaigrette. Dump equal parts Pomegranate Juice and Red Wine Vinegar in a measuring cup. Add in double their combined volume of olive oil. Add in a good amount of turmeric, and salt and pepper to taste. Mix well to combine. Throw some baby spinach, arugula and diced red onion in a bowl. Toss with dressing to combine. Put on plate, top with a spoonful of arils and some goats cheese. Main Course - 72 Hour Sous Vide Short Ribs with a Pomegranate Barbeque Glaze and Side of Pomegranate Stuffing Make a simple spice rub of salt, pepper and cinnamon. Rub that generously on your short ribs. Vacuum seal them. Cook at 132oF for 72 hours, give or take. While that is cooking for 3 days, you have time to make a barbeque sauce and forget to take pictures of it at any point. Start with a bunch of pomegranate juice and steep some ginger in it for a good while, you want the temp here to stay below boiling for like half an hour if you can manage it. Then fish out your crushed knob of ginger, add in some apple cider vinegar, some tomato paste and some ketchup to make things easier. Let this cook down until it reached the desired consistency. Season with salt and pepper and some cayenne if you fancy it. This kept a whole bunch of the pomegranate's tartness, and was generally easy to make, this is one I think I will make again. Ok, your ribs are out of your tepid puddle machine by now. Get them out of their bags and dry them off. I like to let them come down at least to room temp before the next bit, or you can throw in the fridge for a few hours. Now that they are cool, slather them in your barbeque sauce, and throw them on your smoker at 200o for 1 hour, then drop it to the smoke setting for another hour.   Now we get to work on the side dish. Easily the least impressive of my dishes, but it was still decent. Get some sourdough bread, tear it into chunks, and put them in an oven at it lowest setting to dry out. Check on them periodically, you don't want them toasted, you just want them dry. Alternatively, you could just use stale bread. Now make a wet thing to wet your dry things. Sauté some onions, after a bit add in some garlic. After more add in the remainder of your parsley. This is a good part to use your stems too, dice them finely. Add some sage and thyme here right before adding in some chicken stock, cook it so the flavors get to know each other for a bit, taste for seasoning and depending on how salty your chicken stock is, you may want to add some salt, and definitely add in some pepper. Also, optionally, add in some pomegranate juice here, I wanted it to read more pomegranate so I did it, but it didn't need it, the arils were enough to let you know it was pomegranate. You don't need this to cook down, it's going to be absorbed by your dry bread. Pour your mixture over your bread cubes which are placed in a casserole, tossing it to combine, you want your bread soggy, but not excess stock on the bottom of the casserole. Add in a bunch of arils. Toss again, then top with more arils. Bake at 375oF for like 30 minutes, then crank up your oven to 450oF for like 10 minutes to get a crispy top.   Dessert Course - Pomegranate Lime Panna Cotta with Pomegranate Whipped Cream Starting with my Mise. My original plan here was to use lime juice, but then realized I only had one packet of unflavored gelatin, so I used a box of lime gelatin to supplement and cut out the lime juice.  But the steps are pretty simple, heat your heavy cream and half and half and sugar, but don't boil it. Let it get warm/hot and make sure the sugar is all dissolved. Bloom the gelatin in some pomegranate juice.   Prep your ramekins by putting some frozen arils at the bottom. Throw in some pomegranate juice and arils you steeped and then blended in the long ago as recipe testing, and were just sitting in your fridge. that you discarded because you couldn't find a spot for it. And then mix your mixtures together. Add some of your pomegranate lime syrup because the color isn't reading right. Consider using food coloring and discard that possibility, and settle for a pinkish tan color.   Let set up in the fridge at least overnight. Be unhappy with the color and decide to make a whipped cream topping. Whip together heavy cream, pomegranate juice, and some pomegranate lime syrup.  Put on top of the panna cotta, and garnish with some arils. For my final trip report, it's going to be a while before I want to crack open a pomegranate again, but in some time, I can see it becoming more of a staple in my winter cooking. The riff on spanakopita is going in the rotation when I need to bring an app somewhere. The stuffing was the only dish I wouldn't consider making again. It wasn't bad, it just felt like the pomegranate didn't really bring much to the table, whereas all of the other dishes, the pomegranate shined through and felt like it belonged. The panna cotta was too sweet for my liking, but that is just adjusting the sugar I put in the cream. The tartness of the pomegranate helped balance it overall. This was so much fun and I already excited to participate in the next one!
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Feb 7, 2022 17:06
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| # ? May 8, 2024 18:22 |
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Sup panna cotta buddy  Everything looks amazing, the ribs and spanakopita especially! Nice thinking on the bitters! I love adding cranberry sauce to my Thanksgiving stuffing so even though you didn't like it, I think I may make it with some of my leftover arils 
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Feb 7, 2022 18:14
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BrianBoitano posted:Sup panna cotta buddy Yeah, filling the cranberry spot in thanksgiving was the inspiration, but it didn't quite hit. I'm sure with some tooling it could have been better.
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Feb 7, 2022 18:16
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Those pies
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Feb 7, 2022 20:06
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Wanna eat some kale/pomegranate spanakopita.
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Feb 8, 2022 03:18
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that spanikopita was inspired! Great entry!
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Feb 11, 2022 14:51
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Gotta detract points for shaking an Old Fashioned, but the kale spanakopita was a great idea. Short ribs look fantastic too.
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Feb 12, 2022 02:05
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| # ? May 8, 2024 18:22 |
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Holy poo poo spanikopita and short ribs, I would eat this stuff so hard.
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Feb 14, 2022 16:10
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