Purple

by Cynthia Graber

 
 

I'm not even going to bother regaling you with the tale of the curried butternut squash red lentil soup that used up the last of the squash in the refrigerator. Yes, it was quite tasty. But it can be summed up in one word: orange.

Instead, I'll go for a different color today - purple.

One of my favorite ways to enjoy fruit in the winter is to turn frozen blueberries into a royal shade of blueberry soup. It takes about one minute. Take frozen blueberries out of the freezer (in the past I've bought frozen Maine blueberries, but this year I picked loads with C. and froze my own bags). Pour some into a glass bowl, sprinkle in some sugar, mix it up. Stick the bowl in the microwave for, oh, about a minute. The blueberries should express their liquid into a deep purple broth. If it's not hot and brothy yet, stick it back in the microwave for another 30 or so seconds, until it's done.

Then stir in a few spoonfuls of yoghurt, just enough to make it creamy, but still deeply purple. There, blueberry soup, a perfect mid-afternoon snack.

Onto another purple tale. In the last CSA bunch, I received, once again, a bunch of beets. You may recall that I lack a certain fondness for most root vegetables. There have, though, been beet dishes I've tried that I've enjoyed. They usually have a tangy marinade, perhaps citrus, paired with another flavor, such as goat cheese.

I flipped through a cookbook I'd taken out of the library (a revelation! taking cookbooks out of the library!). It's called The Book of New Israeli Food, by Janna Gur, and it's a stunning coffee-table book of Israeli cuisine. It contained a recipe for beet salad with pomegranates. I absolutely adore pomegranates, with their perfect jewel-like seeds, surrounded with a burst of flavor.

The recipe called for pomegranate concentrate, which I assumed to be pomegranate molasses. (When you look at the ingredients in pomegranate molasses, it contains, well, concentrated pomegranate juice.) It calls for cilantro, but I substituted parsley. She says to boil the beets, but I roasted them until tender and rubbed the skin off. 

It takes a while to deal with the beets, and a while longer to coax the pomegranate seeds from their white pithy cocoons. And be warned, your fingers and nails may remain purple for a couple of days. But it's worth it. The resulting dish was sweet and tart and exploding with flavor. I may have found a beet dish that I not only tolerate, but actually love.

Beet and Pomegranate Salad

• 3-4 medium beets
• 2 tablespoons of pomegranate molasses
• 2-3 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
• 2-3 dried chili peppers crushed (I left this out, but you can add it in, or add in a sprinkle of your favorite chili powder)
• Coarse sea salt
• 1/4 cup delicate olive oil
• 1/2 cup of torn cilantro leaves (I used parsley)
• 1 cup pomegranate seeds

Either boil the beets until tender or roast in a 350 oven until tender. Cool, the peel (if you roast them you can rub off the skin). Cut into small cubes. 

Mix with pomegranate molasses, lemon juice, pepper and sea salt, and let sit for about 15 minutes.

Add in torn/chopped cilantro or parsley and pomegranate seeds, then pour olive oil over top. 

Photo courtesy of Darwin Bell for Flickr Creative Commons

Comments

[Emily Eagle]

Taking cookbooks out from the library is not only a revelation, it's an addiction.

Another revelation: Martha Stewart's (no joke) method for opening and seeding a pomegranate: http://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=52007549392.

Hoorah!

[Cynthia Graber]

Oh my! I never would have known to do that! In case anyone wants to watch the video, copy and paste the link without the period. Somehow the period was included and wouldn't get me to the site, but without it worked. I'm so going to try that next time I face a pomegranate.