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Living in San Diego, I have easy access to many different ethnic food stores. My favorite is Balboa Market, a small Middle Eastern store I frequent to find and buy some of the delicious foods that remind me of home, from different fruit preserves to freshly baked flat bread.
This is where I met Mojgan, a lovely Persian lady from Northern Iran who shared this amazing recipe with me. Mojgan had her shopping cart filled with a variety of produce that included pomegranates, cilantro, labne, eggplants, sour grapes and much more. So my first guess was that she owned a restaurant and was stocking up on produce for her restaurant kitchen. As we started to talk, she explained that she was simply doing her weekly shopping to make a variety of delicious, homemade dishes for her family and was also planning to freeze lots of pomegranate arils to continue to enjoy when the season was over.
Mojgan told me that Anardoon paired perfectly with chicken, but since I met her around Thanksgiving time, I took a leap of faith and served it with turkey on a bed of basmati rice. The dish turned out so delicious that it will most likely become an annual Thanksgiving tradition for me!
If you are not a meat eater, simply serve Anardoon pomegranate sauce over your favorite grains and/or veggies. You will find that it is the perfect complement to any warm eggplant dish.
Equipment
- Sauce Pan
Ingredients
- 2 large or 3 small pomegranates
- 10 oz of frozen sour grapes (defrosted)
- 1 big sized yellow onion (diced)
- 2 tbsp of avocado oil
- 4 tsp of garlic (minced)
- 1 tsp of turmeric powder
- salt and pepper to taste
Instructions
- Heat a sauce pan over medium heat, add avocado oil and diced onions.
- When onions are lightly browned/caramelized, add turmeric powder and garlic, mix and let cook together for 1 min.
- Next add the pomegranate arils and grapes, cover the lid and cook on low temperature for about 45 minutes or until the mixture thickens.
- Generously pour over your meat, grains or vegetables, garnish with cilantro and serve.
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Naira! This is lovely. I just read your post about the Balboa market and I want to try this pomegranate Ardoon. You seem so happy and alive in your writing and in your picture. I can’t wait to read this blog more. when was the last time you were home in Armenia? You mentioned it reminded you of home…
Hello Sarah, thank you for reading this post and for your kind words. I went back to Armenia in 2019 and had a wonderful time. I hope you make this pomegranate sauce and enjoy it as much as I do.