Ignore the rest; this is by far the best information on How to Seed a Pomegranate that I've ever used. Use nature's guidelines and it's all fruit; no mess!
Every year I show friends How to Seed a Pomegranate and not make a huge mess and they say, 'you should do a post about that' but it always escapes me and has never happened. This week I made one of my favorite holiday appetizers, Crostini with Goat Cheese and Pomegranate (also has a list of recipes where I've used pomegranate), and I remembered to take a few photos so I could share...you're welcome! 🙂
I recall when my daughter Lauren was younger and in high school, she helped a woman she babysat for get ready for a holiday party by cleaning a bunch of pomegranates. She came home afterwards with purple hands and a complaint about how much she hated doing it. If only I knew then what I know now!
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I know there are myriad methods I've seen online including spanking the poor fruit with a big wooden spoon or drowning it in water but I was lucky enough to meet someone visiting Colorado years ago who had pomegranates growing in their yard and their method has turned out to be the most natural one and for me the best too. There is almost no mess at all!
The truth is that the mess is the juice we all crave and that juice happens whenever the arils inside are punctured with a knife. So it behooves us to puncture as few as possible. And the trick to that is to follow nature's path and not make our own.
First, cut off the top of the pomegranate where the fruit has fallen off the tree, it should have a sort of crown on the top side. Once you cut off a minimal amount, you will see the separations in the fruit made by membrane.
Cut the peel at each separation where the white membrane meets the outside peel, about a half inch. Grab the top of each section and pull it down to separate them from each other.
These are the only cuts you'll make, for the rest of the fruit, simply use your hands to continue to pull it apart at the 'seams' where the membrane is and gently rub the fruit to separate it from both the membrane and outer shell.
This is easy and because you are not cutting through a bunch of the pomegranate arils, there is not the huge, red mess from juice that Lauren dealt with.
That's pretty much it; just a couple of minutes and no big mess and more perfectly formed seeds that haven't been sliced to pieces. I use them in cocktails, salads, as an ice cream topping and sometimes I just eat them with a spoon.
They are quite simply the ruby jewels of the fruit world and so much easier to deal with then you might have ever imagined. Try my method for How to Seed a Pomegranate and I'm betting you never go back!
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How to Seed a Pomegranate
Barbara Baker
