Thursday 20 May 2010

Red Onion & Pomegranate Salad

This salad is absurdly simple, but very rewarding. Colourful with jewel-like pomegranate seeds, it is adapted from a Nigella recipe and makes an ideal accompaniment to curries. There's no danger of the dreaded onion breath as the lime juice strips away the harshness, leaving just sweet and sour. It works well stuffed into meat-filled pittas, scooped up with a dab of houmous on a flatbread or just roasted meats; I took it to a barbeque recently and it went down a storm.

Red Onion & Pomegranate Salad

Makes as pictured

2 red onions
2 limes
1 pomegranate
1/2 tsp cumin seeds
A handful of coriander
Salt & pepper

Halve the pomegranate and squeeze the juice into a bowl. Add the juice of the lime. Slice the red onions thinly in half crescents and add to the juice, leaving it for half an hour. Meanwhile, pic the seeds out of the pomegranate. Drain the onion, throw in the pomegranate seeds and the coriander, chopped up. In a non-stick pan, lightly toast the cumin seeds and bash about a bit in a mortar and pestle. Stir this through the onion, salt and pepper to taste and it's ready.

9 comments:

Helen (Fuss Free Flavours) said...

Raw onion makes me very nervous, but I have some lime so will give it a go.

BribedwithFood said...

I was at that barbeque and can vouch for deliciousness of salad.
Mmmmm....

catty said...

I love pomegranate and red onion so this is going to be added to my recipes to try. YUM!

The Grubworm said...

I like the addition of cumin seeds here - i reckon they'll give it a rounder flavour overall. Yum. Roll on Saturday sunshine.

Becci said...

If this was on a bbq spread I would actually consider reducing my meat intake so I could have a bit. Now, you can't say fairer than that.

Unknown said...

Great recipe. Heading to a BBQ this weekend, a perfect opportunity to try it out for myself. No doubt the rain will be lashing down, making a bright and perky salad even more desirable!

S said...

it looks gorgeous, lots of crunch.and of course,great for a bbq. x shayma

Su-Lin said...

Love that the citrus juice rids the onion of the stink. Bet this would be great in a leftover roast sandwich too.

Anonymous said...

Just made this for lunch at work to go with some leftover roast duck I had to use up. Couldn't add the toasted cumin seeds due to making at work so threw in some freshly chopped mint instead; delicious! It looked so colourful and I loved the way the pomegranate seeds crunched as I ate it. The onion did still have a bit of a bite but I think it was a pretty powerful one as I don't normally cry chopping the reds. Also I *may* have drizzled over some of the oniony pomegranate and lime juice after draining, as it seemed such a shame to waste it, so that *might* have been where the bite came from too. Still, I've been well known to eat raw red onion before so that didn't really bother me.

Made half the recipe above, and have kept half of that in the fridge for tomorrow. Planning on grilling some halloumi to go with it.

Thanks Lizzie!