Pomegranate Baked Rice and Onions With Dill

I made this for the Seder last night and it was absolutely delicious! The pomegranate, onions and dill really worked well together.

The photo shows a double batch compared to the recipe, and I just used a cast iron dish to go from stovetop to oven. I bet the lid did a better job of keeping it moist than foil would have, so if you have a cast iron dish that’s what I’d recommend using for this recipe. If you double it, don’t do what I did and chop double the onions for layering on top… doubling the rice doesn’t increase the surface area! Oops.

It takes a long time to make, but isn’t actually difficult. You could probably replace step 3 with just “saute the onions” if you have broth on hand to save some time.

[https://cooking.nytimes.com/recipes/1023083-pomegranate-baked-rice-and-onions-with-dill](https://cooking.nytimes.com/recipes/1023083-pomegranate-baked-rice-and-onions-with-dill)

* 6tablespoons unsalted butter or vegan butter, plus more for greasing the pan
* 3medium yellow onion, peeled
* 2medium red onions, peeled
* 1¾teaspoons fine sea or table salt, plus more as needed
* ½cup pine nuts
* 6small or 3 large shallots, thinly sliced
* 1cup Arborio or other short-grain rice
* 1tablespoon baharat(or use another aromatic spice blend, such as garam masala)
* I made my own, lots of recipes online, just mix a few spices together
* 1cup coarsely chopped dill (or use any combination of dill, cilantro and mint), plus more for serving
* 1½cups unsweetened pomegranate juice
* I didn’t have enough juice so I added a bit of pomegranate molasses diluted with water, which is pretty much what the store juice is anyway.
* ⅓cup extra-virgin olive oil
* 2tablespoons honey or agave
* I used less because it was pretty sweet already
* 1tablespoon freshly ground black pepper
* plain Greek yogurt, for serving (optional)

1. Heat oven to 400 degrees and lightly butter a 9-by-13-inch baking dish or large, shallow gratin dish.
2. Coarsely chop one of the yellow onions. Cut the remaining yellow and red onions from root to stem into ¾-inch-thick wedges and set aside.
3. In a large skillet over medium-high heat, combine chopped yellow onion, 2 cups water and a pinch of salt. Bring to a simmer and cook, partly covered, until onions are very tender, 15 to 20 minutes. Drain onions, saving the onion broth. (You should have about ¾ to 1 cup broth.) Transfer onions to a bowl, and set aside broth and onions.
4. In the same skillet (no need to clean it), melt 6 tablespoons butter over medium heat. Add pine nuts and cook, stirring constantly, until golden brown, about 2 to 4 minutes. Stir in shallots and cook until tender, 4 to 6 minutes longer.
5. Add rice and cooked chopped onion. Stir in baharat, 1 teaspoon salt and 3 tablespoons onion broth. Cook, stirring occasionally, until rice softens slightly and absorbs most of the liquid, about 15 minutes. If the mixture starts to stick to the pan, add another tablespoon or two of onion broth.
6. Stir in dill. Spoon rice mixture into the prepared baking dish in an even layer. Shingle onion wedges on top, alternating between red and yellow onions.
7. In a medium mixing bowl, whisk together pomegranate juice, olive oil, honey, pepper, remaining ¾ teaspoon salt and ½ cup onion broth. Pour over the onions and rice.
8. Cover pan with foil and bake for 50 minutes. Uncover pan and continue to bake until the rice is tender and onions are soft, glossy and sticky, about 35 to 45 minutes longer. Serve with yogurt, if you like, and more dill.

Looks interesting! You could also post this in r/OnionLovers

Glorious looking. The Ratatouille-esque thin slices really make it special.

I definitely need to try this recipe out

interesting