A NOTE FROM CHEF BECKY
As the busy summer season winds down, I wish I could say we can relax but we can’t. Our kitchen is busy all year round. Now that stone fruit is over we are finishing up the last of the tomatoes and roasting eggplant and peppers. Marmalade season is coming soon and we’ll need to be ready for that but first, the pomegranates need to be juiced.
Pomegranate juice is extremely labor intensive to create without costly equipment. After much trial and error last season, we have figured out how to make pomegranate juice, getting the most juice from the fruit with least amount of bitterness. We use a Norwalk juicer, a hydraulic press juicer. The beauty of the Norwalk is that it presses the seeds without heating the juice as a masticating juicer like a Champion or Vitamix juicer would. Still, the pomegranates need to be rinsed and then peeled and put in the cloth bag and pressed one at a time. We leave the white membrane on and it does not impart any bitterness into the juice. We are able to produce about 9 half gallons in 45 minutes. Not bad, but not enough to give the POM Wonderful people anything to worry about. Although, the flavor of our juice might, because it is rich and full of flavor.
We’ve all heard about the health benefits of pomegranates; they’re high in antioxidants like Vitamin C and polyphenols which in turn provide many heart-protecting benefits by reducing low-density lipoprotein (LDL, or “bad”) cholesterol. Some studies have shown that it may also prevent and help cure breast and lung cancers.
We have been very lucky with our pomegranate crops; they love it here in Brentwood! Farmer Al will be planting 17 different varieties of pomegranates this winter, just to see which ones do best. We took some juice out of the freezer yesterday and I had a glass with breakfast today and I’ll have it later with sparkling water over ice, and much later (it’s Friday, right?) with prosecco.
Cheers!
Chef Becky