While I had lunch recently in a local restaurant the juice the waiter highly recommended was "Sorrel". We ordered it just out of curiosity and it was surprisingly tasty - fruity but not too sweet, a little sour and with a spicy twist. But I had no clue of what it actually consisted.
When I examined later the produce section of a little local store I discovered a bag with the label "sorrel cut" on it. I asked a salesperson for advice on how to use it. Her explanation sounded very easy so I decided to buy a bag. But before I started experimenting one question was bothering me:
What is "sorrel" anyway? I researched shortly in the web and found some useful information. When I understand it right then what you can see in the pictures are the calyces and sepals that origine from the plant Roselle, a species of Hibiscus.
So I started the preparation process according to the advice I've got in the store:
First I washed the cut sorrels (approx. 250gr) in cold water. Meanwhile I brought some water to a boil - I didn't measure really but it was around 2 liters. Then I threw the drained sorrels into the hot water, added a stick of cinnamon, around 12 cloves and 4 tablespoons of sugar. This really depends on someones taste. We don't like it too sweet.* Then I covered the pan and let it stay for 24 hours.
Next step was to skim off the sorrels and spices from the tea or juice - I did it with a strainer.
As I then had the feeling that there was still a lot of liquid in the sorrels I additionally squeezed them by hand and could gain some more drops.
The juice tastes best when chilled so I filled it into a bottle and kept it in the fridge for a couple of hours before drinking. Due to the added spices it gives you a taste of Christmas! But nevertheless it is very refreshing and tasty.
Rahel
* When I gave a glass of my juice to taste to a Grenadian his conclusion was that according to him it needed much more sugar and his wife would've added some ginger as well. But besides that he seemed to like it ;-)
No comments:
Post a Comment