Those of us who are lucky enough to live in California where fruit grows year round on neighbors' trees, are often gifted with bags and persimmons this time of year.
 |
| A bowl full of home grown bounty.Persimmons and pineapple guava from my dear friend Audrey. Lemons and limes from my trees in L.A. |
To tackle the joyous glut of pomegranates, I purchased a hand press juicer. I learned to love a daily glass of pomegranate juice while in Israel a couple years back. I think now I will live to be a healthy hundred year old lady because of my regular intake of fresh, anti-oxidant laden, pomegranate juice. The persimmons, however, do not juice well but are delicious used as an apple, including a great addition to a brown bag lunch. When packing them, there is no need to slice them, they travel well and can be bitten into just like and apple. Of course it is important to note that I am referring to the non-astringent variety of persimmon such a Fuyu or Jiro. These are the squatty variety. The more tear dropped varieties are astringent and need to be fully soft before using and are better in baked goods and desserts.
Anywhooo... I had a bag of persimmons from my dear friend Audrey and some avocados (always a staple in my kitchen!) and some arugula and a pomegranate so I decided to whip up a salad to take along on our oyster expedition the other day.
Pomegranate and persimmon salad:
serves 6
2 Fuyu persimmons
1/4 pomegranate
1 avocado
1 handful of washed greens per person (I used arugula)
toasted or candied pecans (I love these sweet and spicy ones from Trader Joe's)
Lemon vinaigrette:
In a lidded jar add all ingredients and shake well until emulsified
juice and zest from 1 Meyer lemon (if using a more sour variety add 1/2 tsp. more honey)
1 tsp. honey or syrup
1/4 good olive oil
Layer the washed greens on a platter. Make sure your greens are dry. Either put them in a salad spinner or gather them in a clean dry towel and go outside. Holding all corners of the towel firmly, swing it around and around and around so all of the water is spun from the lettuce. hooray for centrifugal force! Layer on to p of the greens the persimmons sliced into 1/2 slices, the avocado cut into chunks, and the seeds from the pomegranate. (see below for pomegranate instructions) Salt and pepper the over the layered salad and top with the pecans. Drizzle the lemon vinaigrette all over the top of the layered salad and serve.
There are many ways to get the seeds from a pomegranate.Here is my current favorite... with a very sharp knife, slice just the skin from the top and bottom of the pomegranate. this will allow you to see the sections segregated by a white membrane. following carefully along the membrane, slice the segment out. Using your fingers, gently release the seeds keeping back any membrane that breaks away. Be careful of the juice...it STAINS!!!!
The base was cooked Bulgar. The greens were parsley, purslane and mint with some frisee. I would omit the frisee and bump up the herbs a bit more. There was pomegranate pips, green onion, pistachios and some crumbled ricotta salata. Ricotta salata is a dry salty cheese. You could substitute some feta for the ricotta salata if it is hard to find. It was dressed in a light lemony dressing. I would use the dressing in the persimmon and pomegranate salad post.
