With all the sunshine we decided to go on a picnic the other week. There is a cool wood nearby to where we lived so we set off with a few pals. I had made a goat's cheese and asparagus tart using our hen's eggs and we picked some wild garlic along the way to have as a salad with it.
I also made some homemade Lemonade. Easiest thing in the world to do. Boil up a pint of water with one pound of sugar for a couple of minutes to make a syrup( This will store in your fridge for several weeks). Allow to cool. Add about 450ml of the syrup to 1.5 litres of water along with the juice of 2 oranges, 3 lemons and some chopped mint. Easy as that.
Liamo, is there much elderberry flowering there round the Barrow? I know that Ikea is opening soon and you can buy the elderberry cordial there but it's much nicer to make it yourself of course! I can send you over the best Flädersaft recipe if you can get yourself enough of the flowers! No time like the present, the flowers will be well gone soon.
ReplyDeleteI will do that and stick the recipie on here if you would be kind enough to send it over
ReplyDelete'Ell, sorry the Elderberry Cordial recipe's taken a while. Been caught up in some extremely non-country pursuits, namely work.
ReplyDeleteHere's the Flädersaft recipe, straight from Sweden as promised. You'll need to get out there ASAP when the flowers are still ripe and juicey! Here in Sweden every elderberry tree has already been stripped by cordial thirsty Svens and Ulrikas.
Ingredients:
50 big elderberry flowers
3 litres of water (we're all metric now)
3 lemons
60 grams of Citric Acid (sold here in supermarkets, probably handy enough to find?)
3 KG sugar (nobody ever said it was diet friendly...)
Method:
Put your flowers in a basin / bucket
Squeeze your lemons over the flowers and slice the lemons into the bucket after you've dejuiced them
Mix the sugar and citric acid and pour evenly over the flowers and lemon skin mix
Press / squeeze the mix, much like you'd 'muddle' the mint and lime in a mojito
Boil up the mix, let it cool
Keep in the fridge or cool room for 4-5 days
Strain the cordial through a towel until the cordial is clear.
Mix with water to taste!
It's a good idea to decant the cordial into smaller plastic bottles (5cl) and bang them in the freezer. The cordial doesn't keep that long, so good to have smaller amounts to hand and use them as you want over a longer period. You can also freeze the flowers if you want to go about it that way.
Lycka til!
Thanks for that Diarmuid. I will have a go at the recipe during the week and let you know how I get on
ReplyDelete