zesty lemonade
high effort high reward am i right
i’m so excited to finally be cooking for myself again. i’ve been traveling and away from my kitchen for nearly 4 months, so this being the first week that i’m home, i wanted to throw myself back into the deep end of cooking. this month, i’m not looking for one-bowl wonders, quick weekday lunches, or sheet pan dinners. i’m looking for a project, baby. a dessert that requires a couple days to assemble and bake. a lunch with three components and a homemade beverage to boot. i want to make my own tomato sauce and preserve my own fruit for the winter. i’m considering a pandemic-era decorated focaccia. i’m making my own hummus.
this is the frenetic version of myself that wants to stand in a kitchen cooking and cleaning for 6+ hours a day, unable to rest until all ingredients in the house have been turned into meals. this is the me that buys several pounds of fava beans and pink-streaked cranberry beans from the farmer’s market and then stresses about when i’ll possibly have the time to shuck and freeze them on top of my regular obligations. my feet hurt, brain is mush, wallet drained, but this is my happy place.
in an ideal world, if i didn’t have to worry about an income or a deadline, i would be happy spending my days cooking aspirational, unhurried meals out of summer produce. it’s why i love summer so much: it’s hot, you’re sweaty, but all these fruits and vegetables are at their peak and if you embrace the heat, you feel one with the sunshine and you’re so aware that this is the youngest you’ll ever be, you still have time to make this the best summer of your life, and, if not, a perfect beach day is just around the corner. other seasons make me melancholic about the passage of time, but in the summer every minute is languorous in a way that instills in me a deep peace, a reminder that life is long and everything is still possible. it’s all very sensual in a way that no other season can compete with. sorry, but fall layers and pumpkin spice could never.
to that end, this is the first of the cooking projects i worked on this week. it’s a recipe for a lemon limeade (hereinafter referred to simply as “lemonade”) made more zingy with the addition of lemon + lime zest steeped in simple syrup. you boil water, pour it atop a bowl of sugar mixed with lime and lemon zest. after 24 hours, you add fresh squeezed lemon + lime juice to the sugar syrup and strain the mixture into a glass of ice and add water.
before publishing this, i decided i had to make a regular lemonade to see if this extra zest step is worth bothering with. in an informal test, caio said that the simple lemonade, without zest, was less acidic than the zest-steeped lemonade. the simple lemonade was refreshing but the taste of the zest-steeped one lingered longer. i noticed that the simple lemonade was clear and light in colour, while the zesty concoction was cloudy and a pretty yellow.
if we’re being totally honest, if i were in a hurry for lemonade i would just squeeze some lemons and limes and mix them with simple syrup for speedier results. however, i’m quite happy with the zesty lemonade specifically as a base for cocktails. steeping the zest in simple syrup means that the fragrant essential oils trapped in the zest are now in the lemonade. it’s similar to how bartenders will squeeze an orange peel onto a cocktail before serving it: they’re adding a final touch of essential oils that give the cocktail another dimension. this is a great way to use up every edible part that citrus fruits have to offer, as opposed to allowing the precious zest to go to waste in the compost bin.
the recipe
makes ~3 cups (24oz), enough for around 12 servings
starring:
6 lemons, washed
3 limes, washed
2 cups white sugar
the play:
(preferably using a Microplane zester,) zest all 6 lemons and 3 limes into a medium size bowl. pour 2 cups sugar over zest, and, using your hands, rub the sugar into the zest to release the lemon and lime oils. this will smell heavenly. boil 2 cups water and pour boiling water over zest and sugar mixture, stirring with a spoon until all sugar is dissolved. allow zest to sit in the simple syrup mixture for 24 hours in the fridge.
the next day, juice all 6 lemons and 3 limes into a pint-size container. strain both the juice and simple syrup mixture into a quart-size container, discarding any seeds, pulp, or zest caught in the strainer. this is your lemonade syrup.
to make lemonade, fill a 12oz glass halfway with ice. pour 2oz lemonade syrup over ice, and fill the remainder of the glass (around 6oz) with still or sparkling water, whichever you prefer. serve lemonade immediately, and keep the quart of syrup labeled + refrigerated at all times. syrup should keep for up to a week.
uses
nonalcoholic variations
mix equal parts lemonade (1:3 ratio of lemonade to water) with iced black tea for an arnold palmie
froth 1 tsp matcha powder with 1oz water until all lumps are incorporated. mix liquid matcha with 1 parts lemonade syrup to 3 parts still water for a refreshing caffeine jolt
alcoholic variations
mix lemonade syrup with gin + champagne for my favourite cocktail, a french75
if you hate gin (unbelievable), try vodka + triple sec for a lemon drop
a new one i’m excited to try tonight is a gin fizz, combining the lemonade syrup with gin and leftover egg whites from a meyer lemon curd pie i’m making (claire saffitz’s version)
hot alert, sorrel found
i found sorrel at the Formaggio Kitchen near me. this is the first time i’ve seen sorrel in Mass since the first time i tried it, around six years ago. if you’ve never had sorrel before, it’s sort of like an extremely lemony green, similar in crunchiness to arugula. it’s more an herb that you can use for flavour rather than a salad green. the reason this matters is because a few years ago on a trip to LA, i ate at Sqirl and had their famous sorrel pesto rice bowl with a poached egg, bacon, and pickled radishes. the pesto rice bowl was a revelation. it was one of those “wow. food can taste like THIS?!” moments that immediately became a core food memory, and i’ve been on the hunt for sorrel ever since. the three bunches of sorrel i snagged have already been pureed with olive oil and portioned into small ziplock baggies in the freezer for future use. i know i’ll need the lemony pick me up in the winter.
leave girl dinner alone
#girldinner is generating a lot of discourse on tiktok, instagram, bon appetit, fox news, buzzfeed, and even the new york times. it started where all food trends start, on tiktok, quickly garnered attention from health experts warning about the dangers of disordered eating/eating small meals, and now there’s memes protecting the girl dinner and calling off the mob to leave girls alone and let them have nice things.
to me, there’s few meals quite as fun as girl dinner—you come home late and tired and put together a mishmash plate of whatever you feel like eating. sometimes it’s a plate of a lot of things, sometimes it’s quite a small meal, but what it is is intuitive eating, it’s self-care because you’re feeding yourself even when you’re exhausted, it minimises food waste because you’re having whatever you find in the fridge, and damn it it’s a snack plate, which is a great meal to have when you’re an adult with no one waiting on you to feed them. leave the girlies alone!
upcoming
in august, i’m featuring several middle eastern meat and vegetable recipes for the grill, a refreshing salty-sour yoghurt drink (tan), and an easy guide for must-buys from an Armenian grocery store, in case you’re not sure where to start. stay tuned, and if you haven’t already, subscribe below to receive the content in your inbox as soon as i hit “publish”. thank you for being here :)