Sunday, March 11, 2012

The Pomegranate Conspiracy.

IN my front garden at home, there is a pomegranate tree that has stood there for a long time. I don't exactly know how old it is, nor do I know who planted it. Each year however, it produces a bounty of fruit that intrigued me for the longest time - even though I had no idea what to do with them.


A couple of years ago, my natural curiosity got the better of me and I embarked on a quest to learn about the fruit, it's uses and I discovered that it quite versatile. The most appealing use I found for the pomegranate is its apparent juice properties and I discovered that as a thirst quenching beverage, it is something to behold.


But the process of transforming the fruit to a juice is not an easy one...well, it's not so much a case of it being not easy, it's just bloody fiddly.


This past month - which I should say, seems to be the optimal time for a pomegranette harvest down under - I embarked on what has become a yearly ritual in our little home.
It begins with the harvest itself and involves me up a ladder, scouring the tree for the best fruit I can lay my hands on. It's not an easy task as the tree is dense, it's boughs are tough and they have little protrusions that stick into your skin. Suffice to say, I dropped a number of F-bombs during the few hours I spent cutting down the fruit.



The best fruit are large, about the size of a baseball and they are a deeper reddish-green (more-so than the ones you see here), however I was surprised by the number of smaller fruits that had large, juicy arils inside. Arils are the key to this whole operation by the way and are what makes the final product worth the effort.


The tree yielded quite a haul of fruit (more than what you see above). I think I had about four or five of these crates all told. The next stage in the process is a sort of grading of the fruit - sorting the best looking, the smaller but still potential, the ones that have split open and have to be discarded, to the fruit that is bruised and thus unlikely to be viable. Once that's done, we move onto the cutting and aril extraction.


Essential tools for this task are a cutting board, a ridiculously sharp knife and a large bowl of water. I learned throughout the process that if you leave the fruit for a day or two, they actually soften a little, which makes it a hell of a lot easier to flesh them and gain access to the arils inside. The arils, as I said earlier are the lynch pin. They are small pearls of juice and seed which you need to gently extract from within and deposit into the water bath. You're looking for nice, plump, ruby red arils which contain the most juice.  


The water bath allows you to wash away the extra debris from the fruit's flesh that inevitably makes it's way into the bowl. The time it takes getting these little jewels out varies depending on how motivated you are and how much fruit you have. I found that having a few beers on hand, as well as a few episodes of Keith and the Girl made the time fly by. Of course, having help is good too but, once you get into a rhythm, help is usually not needed.


Once you have your considerable yield, the next step is to rinse the arils under the tap to get rid of as much debris as possible. Again, leaving the fruit for a day or two after harvesting softens them up enough that removing the arils is a lot easier and you don't end up with nearly as much debris as you would otherwise have.


Then it is to the mixer we turn. I had enough arils that I needed to do this step in batches, which is testament to my harvesting skills I guess. Using the mixer, you give the arils a damned good pulse until you see the juice begin to separate from the pulp that is created as a result. This is perhaps the quickest part of the process - and the most enjoyable. 


Now we come to the filtration process which, after the harvest and the extraction, is the most time consuming process in the chain - and for good reason. This is where the quality of the filtered juice is paramount and it requires a lot of patience. You'll find yourself having to repeat the filtration process in order to minimize the amount of sediment that gets itself into the final product.


After pouring the juice into a strainer, you need to compress and move the resulting flesh and seed material around so that you can extract as much juice as possible from it. I started giving thought to whether this pulp would be any good as some kind of skin care product for the ladies but for the time being, I decided to dump this pulp. I haven't ruled out a possible tilt at cornering the ladies skin care market at some later date.


So, after a half hour of straining, restraining, re-filtering and more restraining, you end up with a liquid like this. This image (below) doesn't quite do the juice justice but let me say just how satisfying it is to get to this after everything that came previously. Again, this is just a small sample of what I filtered and I think I kept going at it for a little while after. I kept saying to my serioso during this phase that I wished I had a piece of muslin cloth to capture more of the sediment. I actually ended up using a Chux towel which kind did the same thing, although it was a little too absorbent for my liking.


The final product is a juice that has been described as a "super food". Pomegranate juice contains anti-oxidants, it is rich in Vitamin C and it has been said that it even has anti cancer properties as well as a range of cardiovascular health benefits. For me though, it is just a damned fine drink, which is home made and preservative free. 

Now the juice on it's own can be a little tart and I have found that requires a little extra to sweeten it. Apple juice is usually a great complement to it. So here you have it - my custom built organically grown pomegranate juice. From this years harvest, I yielded around 6 to 7 litres of juice, which I think is pretty cool from just the one tree. There was still more fruit on the tree even after my harvest but I think I'd had enough of getting spiked. I think I'll employ some more help next year. 


So here's a recipe for a cocktail that I'm sure you'll agree, sounds absolutely amazing. 

The DFA Pomegranate Cocktail

To 1 tall glass add
1/4 Apple Juice
3/4 Pomegranate Juice
1 Splash of Vodka
Crushed Ice
1 Frangapani Flower to Garnish
(may add some crushed mint for an extra taste)

DFA.





  

3 comments:

  1. I LOVE POMEGRANATE JUICE. Good for you for going to all the trouble to get it! I've heard the juice is extremely hard to collect, which is why it's so expensive. Well done!

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  2. The process is indeed time consuming and it requires some patience but if you can get some eager children in on the action or some grown us whom you can ply with liquor and a Bar-b-Que to boot then it can be well worth it.

    The juice seems to last quite a while too. I note that I've had a good three litres in the fridge now for over a week and it's still really good - perhaps better even.

    It's certainly a drink from heaven.

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  3. Wow, that's quite a process. The end result looks good though.
    I've like pomegranate juice with coconut water, the sweetness helps out the tartness, also adds to the health benefits.

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