I love pomegranates, but I'm never sure what to do with them. I buy the fresh juice whenever I see it, but I usually just drink it straight. This recipe is my first attempt at doing something more creative with it.
If you have the beans already cooked, or a couple of cans handy, this is a fairly quick recipe, although if you can't get ready squeezed juice, getting juice from a pomegranate can be a bit fiddly and time consuming. Here, I'll assume that we're starting with the whole fruit and I'll describe how to get the juice out. In this case I recommend doing that as the first stage of the recipe.
This is another one of those recipes where the pestle and mortar comes in handy.
Ingredients
500g of cooked and drained red beans (that's about two cans)
A handful of shelled walnuts
1 pomegranate
A large bunch of spinach
2 or 3 cloves of garlic
A couple of sprigs each of fresh coriander, mint and basil
A teaspoon of whole coriander seeds
A few black peppercorns
Olive oil
Salt
Using your hands, break the pomegranate apart and separate the grains from the white skin. Mash the grains gently with a pestle and mortar then strain off the juice with a seive or a piece of muslin. Chop the herbs, grind them and then and add to the pomegranate juice. Leave this mixture aside until needed.
Clean and dry the pestle and mortar, then grind the coriander seed and black pepper. Add the peeled garlic and nuts and grind until you have a fairly smooth paste.
Heat a little oil and fry the nut paste for a couple of minutes. Add the beans, chopped spinach and a little salt. Stir and cover the pan. Cook until the spinach is soft then add the pomegranate juice and herbs. As soon as the mixture comes back to the boil, remove from the heat and serve.