We had our son and daughter-in-law round for dinner last night. We asked them what they would like us to cook, Mediterranean or Indian? They chose Mediterranean!
We had a dish new to us in George Town, Malaysia last week called muhammara, so we decided we would make this ourselves along with hummus, baba ganoush, tzatziki, flat breads, etc. We also have some home-made sun-dried tomatoes. We would buy in feta cheese and gherkins.
It turns out muhammara is a of a faff to make. The dish originates in Aleppo, Syria and is made from roast red peppers together with chopped walnuts and chilli flakes and something called pomegranate molasses.
There is no chance we can get pomegranate molasses here, so we had to make our own. First, we spotted some pomegranate juice in one of the supermarkets. That would save us having to make pomegranate juice. Unfortunately, when we got it home and read the label more carefully, it turns out that it was pomegranate and mixed berry juice. Back to plan A then, make our own pomegranate juice from scratch. So off to Makro and we buy 6 pomegranates - cost over 5 UKPs.
Then its a case of carefully extracting the pomegranate seeds, making sure none of the white pith gets in as this apparently is rather bitter. Then, blitz in the blender for a few seconds and strain the resulting mixture to remove the seeds. Finally, add sugar and boil to reduce the liquid to something resembling syrup.
But of course that is just one ingredient. But the result was well worth it!
Step 1 - separate the seeds
Pomegranate Juice
The finished, reduced down juice