POM IS wonderful

April 10, 2009 at 1:58 pm | Posted in Dessert, Pastry, Pies and Tarts | 61 Comments
Tags: chocolate ganache, POM Wonderful, pomegranate curd, pomegranate juice, swiss meringue, tarts

About a month ago, I was contacted by POM Wonderful, the makers of POM Wonderful 100% Pomegranate Juice, among several other pomegranate products made exclusively from their own orchard grown pomegranates in California, asking me if they could send me some of their pomegranate juice to sample.  Naturally, I couldn’t pass this up, especially since I’d never tried bottled pomegranate juice before and I LOVE pomegranates.  I use the seeds aka arils quite a bit in my baking and cooking, not to mention they’re a tasty snack that’s GOOD for you.`HOWEVER, pomegranates are currently NOT in season..but we’ll get to that in a moment.

They sent me a case of eight of the cutest little bottles (see below – coochy coochy coo!) kept cold with an ice pack.  I immediately guzzled one bottle and was blown away by how tasty it was.  Think cranberry juice but better, with an undertone of plum (according to J), but even better than that.  Hard to explain, but someone had to remove the case from my arms before I drank them all!

 

Photo of pomegranate not mine – read below.  POM juice bottles straight from the fridge, hence the lack of ruby translucency of the juice in the bottle.

Here’s the best part – this juice is SO good for you, and that’s an understatement.  It’s loaded with antioxidants which do amazing things for your general health and body, so what did I decide to do?  Yep, that’s right, load it with sugar, eggs, butter and pair it with chocolate and even more sugar, eggs and butter in a crust!  Whoohoo..let’s turn this amazingly delicious and healthy juice into a heart attack on a plate!

Although I used some of the juice to make glazes for chicken, shrimp and pork, this preparation was by far the favorite.  First I checked out the POM Wonderful site to see if their recipes contained anything similar to this because well, they’ve got what seems like a gazillion recipes for anything and everything you could imagine, using pomegranate juice.  I was originally going to try a noodle kugel, but they’d already done that…WTH??  Then flan, but nope, they’d come up with a great recipe for that too.  After perusing through all of their yummy looking recipes, I realized I would have to go a little outside the box.  Yes, just a little, since anything meringue pie or tart(s) – tartlets..whatever.. has been created and covered endlessly in the past two centuries.  That said, I’d never seen nor tasted a pomegranate meringue pie!  How about one with a spicy chocolate ganache layer underneath the curd?  NOW we’re getting somewhere!

Of course there was a little problem to address..pomegranate curd doesn’t set up well without the addition of some kind citrus juice.  Making a PURE pomegrante curd could be possible thanks to the advice from uber pastry extraordinaire, Tri2Cook, with the addition of a little gelatin.  You could use cornstarch, tapioca flour, arrowroot, ad infinitum, but I wanted to stay away from those kind of thickeners…hoping I could do it with just eggs/egg yolks and butter like you would with a basic lemon curd.   According to Tri2Cook, a small amount of gelatin would in no way affect the smooth, silky curd I was seeking by turning it into a gelee, or even worse – JELLO.  Regardless, I felt I had to add some citrus juice to insure it would set up, but just a little, so the flavor of pomegranate wasn’t overpowered by the citrus (lemon juice in this case).

Now that I had my tartlets planned out, I was missing one component, pomegranate seeds!  Geez, when these babies are not in season, trying to find frozen pomegranate or pomegranate seeds is like trying to find a birth control pill in the Duggar household, unless you order them from POM Wonderful, but I didn’t have time for that.  SO, let’s PREEEETEND there are pomegranate seeds maybe in the curd and sprinkled over and around the tartlets for presentation!  We shall call them Phantom Pomegranate Seeds, K?   ‘OH, look at those gorgeous ruby seeds cascading over the meringue in my photos! *wink wink*’  Honest to god, I almost used pink peppercorns in hopes that no one would notice..LOL  Speaking of persona non pomegranata, the lovely photo of the pomegranate above is NOT MINE since I didn’t have a pomegranate to photograph.  I found it in a forum, and liked it more than others I’d seen.  Unfortunately, the photo was not credited,  as the person who posted it didn’t take it, SO – if this is YOUR PHOTO, please email me and I’ll credit the photo to you.

I love these tarts.  You get such a bounty of flavors and textures with each bite.  From the top down, you go from melt in your mouth sweet, to silky, crunchy/juicy (Remember, Phantom Pomegrante Seeds!) and tart, to rich and spicy..IF you add cayenne to the chocolate ganache layer.  If not, then we’ll just say rich, dense and chocolatey.  Let’s not forget the crust so add buttery and flaky to that equation!  If you close your eyes and take a bite, you immediately think ‘lemon meringue’ because of the tartness of the pomegranate, but there’s a much fruitier-berry like depth to it, and adding pomegranate seeds would multiply that depth.

Finally, although it seems so, this is NOT an advertisement for POM Wonderful because..to put it simply, I wouldn’t have come up with a recipe using their juice and blogged about if I didn’t like it, and I REALLY liked it!

                 Pomegranate Meringue Tarts with Spicy Chocolate Ganache

Pate Sucree
Makes six 4-inch round tart shells

Ingredients

2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
3 tablespoons sugar
1 tsp salt
1 cup (2 sticks) chilled unsalted butter, cut into pieces
2 large egg yolks
1/4 cup ice water plus 1 tsp apple cider vinegar

Directions

1. Place flour and sugar in the bowl of a food processor, and pulse for a few seconds to combine. Add butter to flour mixture, and process until mixture resembles coarse meal, about 20 seconds. In a small bowl, lightly beat egg yolks and ice water until combined. Pour egg mixture through the feed tube in a slow, steady stream, with the machine running. Process just until dough holds together, no more than 30 seconds.

2. Turn dough out onto a clean work surface. Divide into two equal pieces, and place each on a sheet of plastic wrap. Flatten into disks. Wrap, and refrigerate at least 1 hour or overnight.

3. Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Place six 4-inch tart rings or molds on a baking sheet lined with a Silpat or parchment paper. Set aside.

4. On a lightly floured surface, roll out pate sucree to 1/8 inch thick. Cut out six 6-inch circles of dough with a sharp paring knife, using an overturned 6-inch bowl as a guide if necessary. Press dough into tart rings; trim excess with a sharp knife. Dock tart shells by piercing the bottom all over with a fork. Transfer to the freezer until firm, about 15 minutes.

5. Cut out six 6-inch parchment paper circles, and line rings; fill with pie weights or dried beans. Bake until the edges begin to brown, about 20 minutes. Remove from oven, and carefully remove parchment and beans. Return to oven, and continue baking until golden brown all over, about 10 minutes more. Transfer to wire rack to cool completely. Carefully remove tart shells from tart rings, and set aside.

Spicy Chocolate Ganache

Ingredients

3 oz bittersweet or semisweet chocolate, finely chopped
1/4 cup plus 2 Tablespoons heavy cream
2 Tablespoons room temperature unsalted butter, cut up
1/8 – 1/4 tsp cayenne pepper (optional)

Directions

1. Place chocolate in medium bowl. Pour heavy cream into heavy-bottomed saucepan and bring to boil over medium-high heat. Pour cream over chocolate and let sit for about a minute. Add cayenne and whisk until smooth. Stir in butter until combined and uniform. Let cool for about 5 minutes.
2. Pour about 2 to 3 Tablespoons of ganache into each tart shell, dividing it evenly. Cover each tart with plastic wrap and let set in the fridge.

Pomegranate curd

Ingredients

3/4 cup POM Wonderful 100% pomegranate juice
Juice of one lemon
1/2 cup superfine sugar
6 egg yolks**
pinch of salt
1/2 cup (1 stick) cold unsalted butter, cut into 1/2-inch pieces
1/2 tsp powdered gelatin
1 Tablespoon POM Wonderful 100% pomegranate juice
1-2 Tablespoons grenadine
1/2 cup pomegranate seeds (optional)

Directions

1. In a small heat proof bowl or cup, sprinkle gelatin over the Tablespoon of pomegranate juice..let sit until softened.  When ready to add to curd, place cup or bowl in simmering water until the gelatin is completely melted, dissolved and smooth.

2. Whisk eggs, yolks and salt together in a medium sized bowl.
In a heavy-bottomed sauce pan, combine juices and sugar. Stir and heat to just below boiling.

3. Temper hot juice and sugar mixture into the yolks and pour everything back into the pot. Over medium heat, whisk constantly and fairly quickly until thickened (temp will be about 160 degrees F, if you’re using a thermometer and it will coat the back of a spoon, enough so that you can draw a line through it with your finger, and it stays).

4. Stir in  melted gelatin and then butter until combined. Strain curd into a new bowl or large glass measuring cup. Stir in grenadine until uniform in color, and pomegranate seeds if using.  Let cool for a few minutes.

5. Pour curd over set ganache in each tart shell, dividing it evenly. Cover each tart with plastic wrap, pressing it on the surface to prevent a skin from forming. Let set in the fridge until firm.

** If you want to err on the side of caution, add 1 Tablespoon cornstarch to yolks and salt prior to mixing and tempering.

Swiss Meringue

Ingredients

6 large egg whites
1 cup granulated sugar
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

Directions

1. Lightly whisk egg whites and sugar together over simmering water until egg white mixture is hot to touch or a candy thermometer reads 140°F.

2. Pour hot whites into the bowl of a stand mixer or any large bowl if you’re going to mix by hand or use electric beaters. Beat until double in volume and thick and glossy, holding firm peaks that just curl at the tip. Quickly beat in vanilla extract.

3. Spoon evenly or pipe decoratively over tarts. Brown meringue with a kitchen or blow torch or place tarts on a baking sheet in a preheated 375 F oven for about 15 minutes until meringue is browned.