Grenadine and Pomegranate syrup
Posted by Wayne Bretski in Food
Two sides of the same coin on making these "mix" type drinks.
For the pomegranate syrup, boil the juice of a couple pomegranates along with about a quarter cup of sugar. The syrup should be a pinkish hue.
Here's the syrup mixed with champagne.
For a different take, boil about three pomegranates' worth of juice until about a third of the original liquid remains. This is true grenadine. With champagne:
Clearly a little darker red. You could sugar this up a bit too, it was a little bitter but not bad.
The tough part here is getting the juice out properly, without making a mess. The first thing to do is chop off the 'head' or 'crown' of the fruit, then section it with a knife. From there you just want to separate the pith from the seeds. I did it over a bowl which caught the red juice, and I put seeds that were fully separated into here. If the seed stuck to the pith, or there was a chunk of pith in which several seeds, these I tossed into a pot with water. The water separates the pith, which floats, from the seeds which don't. Once you've got the seeds separated out, use a food processor or blender to chop up the seeds, called arils, releasing the liquid inside. For most pomegranate recipes you can stop here, but for the syrup and grenadine, you'll have to take the chopped up mush and use a strainer or cheesecloth to let the juice through and leave the seed covers. I used a French press coffee maker, putting the mush in the bottom and pushing the lever down hard to release all the moisture. You can still eat the fibrous seed covers, as they are good for you and taste okay. I found that two pomegranates can yield about a cup of juice, more if you have better technique.
Thanks to Carrie for the pomegranates, to experiment!
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