"Lemonade on hot summer days."
🍋"Lemonade with ice in a fancy glass cup."
🍋"Lemonade with frizzy bubbles."
🍋"Lemonade that activates your saliva."
🍋
That sour sweet flavor lured so many people to invest their time and
money (especially the children e.g. lemonade stall on the street). I also have
tried many lemonade recipes in the past year or so. I went to different
restaurants across the country and abroad to taste different lemonade recipes
as well as the commercially sold lemonade bottles in superstores. Out of the top
5 lemonades that I have tried, my mother-in-law’s (she owns a restaurant)
lemonade recipe was by far the best one that I had in terms of balance because
you often get sick of finishing the drink if it’s too sweet or too sour or too
bland.
There are three things that I look for in lemonade:
1. Is the balance between sweet/sour good?
2. Is it carbonated? (=frizzy?)
3. Is the scent of the lemonade refreshing? (I’ll talk about this later)
Learning the recipe from my mother-in-law, I came up with my own recipe which
includes the scent of freshness. The recipe is about making lemon syrup that
you can mix with carbonated water (or just water). Each jar will last up to 30
to 40 glasses depending on how much you use your syrup (some people might like more
syrup to get a sweeter flavor while others may not like it too sweet).
So here is the general recipe for making the best lemonade (my personal
opinion):
Ingredients for lemon syrup:
1.
Bag
of lemons (usually from Costco) roughly 5lbs which is about 12 lemons in it
2.
500g
of white sugar (it’s like ¼ of your usually 2 kg white sugar bag from the
grocery)
3.
1
jar of honey (roughly 500g as well – I recommend the great value liquid honey
if you are saving costs)
4.
One
pinch of salt
Ingredients for lemonade:
1.
3-4
big spoons of THE syrup (mentioned above)
2.
Carbonated
water (no additives in it)
3.
Fresh
pepper mint
4.
And
ICE
So here are the steps!
1.
In
a large bowl, add all the lemons and fill it with water so that the lemons are
completely in water.
2.
Add
one big spoon of baking soda and a small cup of vinegar in the bowl (the amount
doesn’t matter as long of the vinegar fizzes with the baking soda). This is to
clean the outer layer of the lemon
3.
Let
it sit inside the solution for 10 minutes.
4.
Wash
the lemons with running water thoroughly.
5.
In
a big pot, fill it with water and start boiling. You can prepare this while
sitting the lemon in the solution.
6.
Once
it starts boiling, put the lemons one by one in the boiling water for 10 to 30
seconds then remove them out of the water. This is to sterilize the outer layer
and chemicals of the lemon.
7.
Place
the lemon on a CLEAN cutting board and pat them dry with CLEAN kitchen towel.
8.
Now
slice the lemon thinly (use about 5 to 6 lemons out of the total). Remove
seeds as you slice them.
9. Place the slices into a large bowl.
10.
With the remaining 5 to 6 lemons, you cut them
in half and squeeze the juice into the bowl. (If you have squeezers, you are lucky.
I did it by hand ☹)
11.
Well,
you can keep what’s left over from the squeezed lemon for other purposes (see
my other posts about how to use them)
12. Add 500 g of white sugar and 500 g of honey into the bowl.
13.
Add
a pinch of salt (don’t put too much salt or else your lemonade will end up
tasting gross – this really happened to me. I put a spoon of salt, and it ended
up tasting a bit greasy even though there is no oil included in the recipe).
14.
Mix
everything with a spoon or spatula (or whatever tool you have) to mix.
15.
Cover
the bowl with plastic wrap so that no bugs or dust enter.
16.
Let
it sit for about 5 hours so that it completely saturates the lemons.
17. Transfer the mixture into your favorite glass jars (needs to be sterile – make sure you boil them). And seal tight! Now you have the whole lemon syrup which will last you for at least 3 to 4 months.
18.
Place
fresh pepper mint on the bottom of your (glass or plastic whatever cup you
have) cup.
19.
Add 3-4 big spoons of lemon syrup to a cup.
20.
Pour
a can of carbonated water into the cup then mix.
21.
Finish
it off with ICE. VOILA here is your lemonade.
The peppermint gives extra scent of freshness to the drink, quenching one’s thirst. It is purely optional to put the mint or not, but I prefer to put it. Enjoy your fresh lemonade anytime!
By Owen Lee
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