We stepped away from our tools and DIY projects for a minute in an ongoing quest to demystify the pomegranate. We put together this quick post to show how to cut up a pomegranate, how to de-seed a pomegranate, how to open up a pomegranate, how to get INTO THE FREAKING THING AND GET THE JUICY BITS OUT. Enjoy.
If you’re a TOTAL noob. A pomegranate is a fruit that is native to Persia. The name pomegranate pōmum “apple” and grānātum “seeded”. The red “berries” you see are called arils and eating them are like eating sweet/tart juicy popcorn kernels. They POP and you get the juice, then you crunch up the seeds.
To get the goodness you only need a knife and a bowl of water. Before you start, LET US WARN YOU…pomegranates are juicy and explode-y and the juice is very stain-y.
This just helps you see what’s going on in there, and helps when you need to bust it open. Very pretty.
Now you can see how it’s broken up into sections, like a tomato. I like to score along the seams because I think it helps in the removal of the Arils (seeds).
Gently grab the thing and ease it apart. It will happen very easily. It will make a satisfying cracking/breaking sound.
Now’s the fun part. Put the sections in a bowl of water and start breaking it up and separating the arils (seeds) from the white membrane. One reason for doing it in water is that the arils will sink to the bottom, the white membrane will float to the top. Another reason is that the arils will sometimes pop and you don’t want that juice everywhere. I usually let my daughter do this part. She says it’s like popping out bloody teeth. I don’t know why she knows what that’s like.
Get rid of all the white membrane and other stuff that floated to the top.
Mmmmmm. That’s it, simple.
The problem with a pomegranate is that it takes about 10 minutes to get the good stuff out and about 30 seconds to eat them.
The whole shebang.
Of course you can also cut the thing in half, hold it cut-side-down over a bowl, and whack the crap out of it with a wooden spoon so the seeds fall out, but that’s not as pretty to take photos of.
Now go have a Pomegranate Cosmo.
4 Comments
Rebecca Ziebarth
Thanks so much for the tutorial. The kids have been asking me to buy them at the store, but I didn’t know how to cut it open. We will have to get some!
Plus a friend makes delicious Pomegranate Martinis!
Pete Fazio
It’s really very simple. And the kids can do the separating.
Andres
Man, those are wonderful pictures!
Pete Fazio
Thanks. Photos by merrypad.com.