04. Sweet tooth: strawberry lemonade
Aug. 12th, 2012 04:33 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
feywoodTitle: Strawberry lemonade
Cuisine: who knows
Skill level: easy (not for children)
Time: 20 minutes
Portions: As many as you like
I really do. Preferably ice tea, which I'll also make at home, but fruit juices, cola, anything, it gets guzzled.
I should drink water, but I really dislike to. Mostly only when I'm sick or with some kind of flavouring added.
So when I read a lemonade recipe a few years ago, I figured why not. It seems, to me, a very American thing to do, but that's no reason not to.
I started out with plain lemonade, but there are infinite variations of which my prefered one is the strawberry lemonade I'll go into here.
No pictures, this time.
Ingredients:
Utensils:
This will get you about 3l of juice.
Wash, hull and half your strawberries and put them in the saucepan.
Puree those strawberries. I just use a fork for a rough job, but you can use a masher or be fancy and use a blender of some sort.
Add 1.5 - 2 cups of sugar (300 - 400 g) and mix.
Add 2 cups/500ml of water and put on the stove to boil.
Once you get to boiling, lower to simmer and leave it for a few minutes.
In the mean time, start squeezing them lemons.
I find that while fresh lemons are the best for the rind or decoration, lemons that are a few days old (or even a week out of the store) are the best for juicing as they go a little soft.
Either way, it helps to have them at room temperature and to roll them over the countertop with some pressure. You'll be able to feel things pop on the inside and that means the juice will flow. Alternatively, poke some holes in them and pop them in the microwave for thirty seconds.
Juice and juice till you have about two cups/500 ml.
Once you've let your strawberry simple syrup simmer for a few minutes, take it off the stove and run it through a sieve to get out the strawberry mush. This is why it doesn't matter that much whether they're perfectly pureed at the start, the cooking turns them to mush anyway.
Be careful when handling this saucepan. Not only is it a hot liquid, but it being hot sugar makes it doubly dangerous.
Mix your lemon juice with the syrup and add about 8 cups / 2l of cold water. This can also be sparkling water if you'd rather have a sparkling lemonade.
Let it cool and you're good to go.
Another alternative I like is lemon-vanilla, which you can get by just using vanilised sugar or by putting some vanilla bean in the syrup as it cooks.
I know there are simpler ways of making lemonade like just juice and sugar and water, no boiling, but I find this works better especially about the distribution of the sugar. No chance of having that little pile at the bottom of your bottle.
Cuisine: who knows
Skill level: easy (not for children)
Time: 20 minutes
Portions: As many as you like
I really do. Preferably ice tea, which I'll also make at home, but fruit juices, cola, anything, it gets guzzled.
I should drink water, but I really dislike to. Mostly only when I'm sick or with some kind of flavouring added.
So when I read a lemonade recipe a few years ago, I figured why not. It seems, to me, a very American thing to do, but that's no reason not to.
I started out with plain lemonade, but there are infinite variations of which my prefered one is the strawberry lemonade I'll go into here.
No pictures, this time.
Ingredients:
- 400 g strawberries
- Around 7-8 lemons, enough for 500 ml of juice
- Sugar
- Water
Utensils:
- A saucepan
- A sieve
- A juicer
- Bottle/caraffe for the end result
This will get you about 3l of juice.
Wash, hull and half your strawberries and put them in the saucepan.
Puree those strawberries. I just use a fork for a rough job, but you can use a masher or be fancy and use a blender of some sort.
Add 1.5 - 2 cups of sugar (300 - 400 g) and mix.
Add 2 cups/500ml of water and put on the stove to boil.
Once you get to boiling, lower to simmer and leave it for a few minutes.
In the mean time, start squeezing them lemons.
I find that while fresh lemons are the best for the rind or decoration, lemons that are a few days old (or even a week out of the store) are the best for juicing as they go a little soft.
Either way, it helps to have them at room temperature and to roll them over the countertop with some pressure. You'll be able to feel things pop on the inside and that means the juice will flow. Alternatively, poke some holes in them and pop them in the microwave for thirty seconds.
Juice and juice till you have about two cups/500 ml.
Once you've let your strawberry simple syrup simmer for a few minutes, take it off the stove and run it through a sieve to get out the strawberry mush. This is why it doesn't matter that much whether they're perfectly pureed at the start, the cooking turns them to mush anyway.
Be careful when handling this saucepan. Not only is it a hot liquid, but it being hot sugar makes it doubly dangerous.
Mix your lemon juice with the syrup and add about 8 cups / 2l of cold water. This can also be sparkling water if you'd rather have a sparkling lemonade.
Let it cool and you're good to go.
Another alternative I like is lemon-vanilla, which you can get by just using vanilised sugar or by putting some vanilla bean in the syrup as it cooks.
I know there are simpler ways of making lemonade like just juice and sugar and water, no boiling, but I find this works better especially about the distribution of the sugar. No chance of having that little pile at the bottom of your bottle.
