King Salmon with Persimmon-Pomegranate Salsa

There's a lot to love about fall. It's the season when some of our more interesting fruits such as persimmons and pomegranates ripen. I love both fruits and when I saw them appear in our store for the first time since last year, I bought some of each with no particular plan for using them. I knew in time that they would speak to me and when I came across a nice piece of king salmon, I thought that two somewhat unusual fall fruits would make a great salsa. I was right: it made a bright, crunchy, sweet-tart counterpoint for an unctuous piece of fish.

King Salmon with Persimmon-Pomegranate Salsa

I must say that modern improved sweet and seedless cultivars of persimmon are a far cry from the wild persimmons I used to devour as a child in Virginia. An inveterate roamer of the woods and fields near our property in the rolling hills at the base of the Blue Ridge Mountains, I knew where every pomegranate tree was within five miles of our house. And I would keep an eye on the fruit as it developed, knowing that the horribly astringent fruit was no good to eat as a rule until after the first frost. Then I had to battle the deer, the wild turkeys, and other smaller creatures for the tiny fruits that are night and day different from their grocery store counterparts today.

In my adult years, I now know time, not frost, is responsible for turning these delicious fruits sweet, golden, and soft. The frost notion was an old wives' tale, a handy rule for approximating when the fruits would be ripe.

Persimmon-Pomegranate Salsa Ingredients

Persimmon-Pomegranate Salsa

Pan-Searing Asparagus for Salmon Garnish

Here's a useful technique for cooking many vegetables on the stove top. You can sear them, like the asparagus above, in a heavy pan with no liquid whatsoever, right on the stove. For thicker vegetables, if you need to move along their cooking, you can splash the pan with a touch of water which will flash to steam and help steam the vegetables as they pan roast.

Persimmon-Pomegranate Salsa

This salsa, while made with somewhat unusual ingredients, follows my tried and true salsa formula of a fruit (or two!), an onion, cilantro, salt, some spice, and lime juice. How much of each ingredient you use is up to you and certainly the amount of lime juice could vary significantly based on how sweet your persimmons are.

2 persimmons, diced
1 pomegranate, seeded
1/2 bunch of green onions, chopped
1/2 bunch of cilantro, leaves only, chopped
1/2 teaspoon Kosher salt or to taste

1 tablespoon chipotle adobo or to taste 

juice of half of a lime or to taste

Don't forget plenty of salt. Not only does salsa depend on the interplay between salt and lime juice, but salt will make the super-sweet persimmon better, in the same way that adding a bit of salt to almost any dessert will improve it.