
I’ve been all about pomegranates lately.
My fling started with a salad disguised as dessert (my favorite kind). It had ripe slices of persimmon, creamy burrata cheese, crunchy homemade sesame brittle, and pomegranate seeds over arugula, dressed with a maple-balsamic vinaigrette. It was very tasty (you can find the recipe from Food & Wine here). We've been eating the leftover pomegranate seeds ever since: just plain, with Greek yogurt, and sprinkled over the remaining burrata.
A few words about burrata. I didn’t have a full understanding of what this Italian cheese really was before I bought a container from Maplebrook Farm. I knew it was a soft, mild cheese, one that was vaguely mozzarella-like, but apparently I was confusing it with bocconcini, the little balls of fresh mozzarella. So I was surprised when I opened the container to find one large ball of mozzarella.
When I removed it from the container with a spoon, it seemed to quiver like a water balloon. I was perplexed, but I forged ahead. I placed the cheese on a board and cut right into it, which caused an explosion of cream and runny cheese curds to spray forth all over the counter, running down my kitchen cabinets. Turns out it was a water balloon! Just one made out of cheese and filled with creamy goodness. (If you’re as interested in how they make it as I was, check out the process here).
I learned three things from this experience. One, maybe ease up on the stabbiness when it comes to portioning out burrata (and do it over a shallow bowl to catch all the exploding cheese). Two, that I love burrata. And three, that I love burrata with pomegranate seeds. The tart, juicy pop of the seeds against the soft, milky curds is just wonderful. It would make a totally indulgent Valentine’s Day dessert that’s very fresh and not too sweet.

How to Seed a Pomegranate: If you look at a pomegranate, you’ll notice it has fat ridges that run from pole to pole like thick longitudinal lines. If you cut gently just through the skin down one of those long ridges, and then again down another one of the adjacent ridges, you can pull a wedge of mostly intact seeds out of the fruit. Then you can just loosen the seeds gently with your fingers, pulling out the thin white membranes that enclose them. I store the remaining fruit in a sealed plastic bag in the fridge until I need to cut another wedge. If you need a lot of seeds at once, it’s often more efficient to submerge the wedges in a bowl of water so you can move a little quicker without the seeds squirting juice all over you. Then you can drain off the water and scoop out the seeds.