Aarti's Recipe. Step 3. Pomegranate Glaze.

For those of you who just landed on this page, please know that I'm doing a recipe offered by Aarti on The Next Food Network Star. It's quite long, so I broke it up into steps. Here are the links to the earlier posts in case you're inclined to go back and check them out: Aarti's Recipe Raita Ground lamb kabobs Back to my regularly scheduled post: On the Next Food Network STAR!!!!!, Bobby Flay was praising Aarti's dish to the skies. "She actually made her own pomegranate molasses," he gushed! Geeze-a-loo, you'd a thunk Aarti had found a cure for cancer. If making your own pomegranate molasses involves merely reducing pomegranate juice, then yes, that's what she did. But it ain't rocket science. It takes about an hour. And you need a certain amount of vigilance.

Ingredients for the glaze: 1 cup pomegranate juice 1 teaspoon stone ground mustard juice of one lemon First, you need to make pomegranate molasses, which is simply a pomegranate juice reduction.

I poured a cup of pomegranate juice into a small pan and - Very Important Step - set the pan with the juice in a cast iron pan. The reason for the cast iron pan is to diffuse the heat. You never want to reduce a sauce over direct heat. To reduce a sauce, you keep the pan on a very low heat. I turn it down as low as my burner gets. Then you wait. And watch. Until the sauce reduces by at least half. Every now and then, you swirl the pan. This goes on for about an hour. Near the end of the hour, do not leave the reduction alone. I made the mistake once and I also did not have my pan on the cast iron. Within seconds, my reduction went from nice and syrupy to sticky burnt tarry glop. After that experience, I've always diffused the heat and I've never had that problem again.

I always stick the end of a wooden utensil in the liquid at the beginning ...

... and mark the level.

Reduce away.

While my pomegranate juice was reducing, I gathered the other ingredients for the glaze: 1 lemon coarse grain mustard

Juice of one lemon and a teaspoon of coarse grain mustard.

Mix well.

About an hour later, the pomegranate juice has reduced to less than half. And notice it's suddenly simmering, which it hasn't done the entire time.

Ready to turn off the heat. This is a critical point here. If you're not watching it when it gets to this, then it will quickly turn on you and not in a good way.

Swirl to cool a bit.

This is a proper reduction.

Isn't it pretty?

Pour the pomegranate reduction into the lemon juice and mustard.

And mix well to combine. Halve the mixture and use one half for basting the glaze on the cooking kabobs and the remaining half for plating.