Pomegranate Sauce

My fiancée and I have recently discovered POM, a brand of pomegranate juices that while prohibitively expensive, are delicious and very nutritious. A bottle of POM runs about 4 bucks for what I believe is about 12 to 16 oz of pomegranate juice either straight up or mixed with tangerine, blueberry, orange, or mango juice. Anyhow the delicious taste of Pom inspired me to seek out other ways to enjoy this fruit. I searched the internet and found all kinds of recipes for pomegranate enhanced dishes, most of which involved Pomegranate Molasses, which is really only pomegranate juice reduced to a thick syrup. I was pleased to find it at Sendik’s (a local gourmet grocery store) for a mere $3.50, a full 50 cents cheaper than the juice. Being a fan of duck breasts I decided to make pan seared duck breasts with a pomegranate sauce. I figured that the sauce would work very well because of duck’s affinity for tart sauces to balance the rich taste from the higher fat content.

I found a recipe on the Food Network site for something called Narshrab, which is a Middle Eastern pomegranate sauce. Tweaking this sauce (as I often do) to accommodate for ingredients at hand and personal taste I came up with the following:

My Version of Narshrab (Middle Eastern pomegranate sauce)

1 teaspoon olive oil
1/2 cup pomegranate molasses
1/4 cup chopped fresh cilantro
1 tbs of honey
Pinch of salt (kosher, of course)
½ teaspoon of sugar.
Some chopped jalepeno or red pepper flakes to taste (I didn’t either, but I imagine that they would add another dimension to the sauce so I recommend them)

Put all ingredients except cilantro into a microwave safe dish. Heat for about 1½ minutes on high, just enough to dissolve sugar. Stir and add cilantro. (I am thinking that finely chopped chives would be great here as well).

Pour over your choice of meat (I would recommend poultry or pork). This sauce is awesome. It would make a great replacement to the shitty cranberry gel that most people serve at thanksgiving.

Despite the delicious sauce, the duck breasts I made turned out crappy. I will not go into any great detail as to what I did with the breasts because I am not sure what went wrong. (Yes I scored the skin and yes I cooked them over medium heat to render out the fat) I have made duck breasts on one other occasion and they turned out great that time so I am perplexed as to why these kind of sucked. As for seasoning the meat, I used ground coriander, salt, pepper, and granulated garlic.