Oh! My goodness, I have sooo many pomegranates. The birds, for some reason, have left about two thirds for me – that is not like them.

I left a very large box of the best in the cool room and brought back (to Perth) an equally large box of the split and nibbled (hence, the not so perfect specimens in the photo).  I am really at a loss as to what to do with them all. I have scoured my books and come up with pomegranate jelly, pomegranate cordial and pomegranate molasses.  I started with the jelly and intend to tackle the other two, but that is not going to use up all the fruit.

I have searched the internet for chutney recipes.  They are all fresh, whereas, I was looking for something I could bottle and put away. I would really appreciate it if anyone has any ideas for using pomegranates.

I have heard that there are two ways of juicing them.  The one I did was to break the pomegranates into a large tub of water, gently easing the seeds out of the membrane.  The membrane and skin float and the seeds sink, allowing you to skim off the debris.  For a bucket and a half of pomegranates, this took us, at least, 2 hours.  We ended up with yellow stained hands (from the membrane) and red syrup everywhere.  Once the seeds are out, it is an easy process to extract the juice using a mouli.

The other way I have read is to use a citrus juicer.  I might try that next time, outside the house!

We ended up with two bowls of seeds.  I then put them (about half a bowl at a time) into this fantastic attachment to my Kenwood Major.  It is, essentially, an electric mouli.  It takes all the work out of seeding fruit.   Below is my Kenwood in action.

Once I had the juice, I strained it to make sure there was no residual pulp in it.

I then measured the juice.   I had 8 cups…

Ingredients

• 8 cups of pomegranate juice
• 8 cups of sugar (The recipes are all over the place with the amount of sugar you ought to put in so I just went by taste.)
• juice of 2 lemons
• 2 x 50g packet of Jamsetta (commercial pectin)

Procedure

1. Dissolve the sugar in the juice over a low heat, stirring constantly.
2. Bring to the boil.
3. Take off the heat and add the pectin.
4. Return to the heat and boil rapidly until the temperature reads 105˚C (which took ages) and then test to see if it has gelled.  If not, take off the heat and add more pectin (commercial, home-made or lemon juice).  Bring it back to 105˚C and test again.
5. Once it has gelled, pour into sterilised jars.
6. I processed the filled jars in boiling water for 10 minutes.  I wasn’t certain that it was necessary but all the recipes seemed to so I did.

I think this is going to taste great with a nice, rich cheddar.

Don’t forget, if you have any ideas for chutneys, pickles, etc, please, let me know.  I would really appreciate it.

Postscript:  The jelly was absolutely delicious with cheese.   Here is a photo of the jelly on a cracker with Fontina cheese.