"Oh the bitter winds are coming in, and I'm already missing the summer. Stockholm's cold, but I've been told I was born to endure this kind of weather"
Autumn is at our doorstep. The signs are everywhere; fresh cold winds, leaves turning from green to gold and the sound of people coughing and blowing their noses in every street corner and home. Truly a magical, phlegm filled time.
Having the flu, for me at least, entails dozens of movies, hankies everywhere, soup for breakfast lunch dinner, woollen socks, jammies all day and hot beverages such as tea and juice.
What kind of juice? Red currant juice.
The best remedy for the cold (aside for the hot gingerlemongarlichoney one, but not today).
As a kid I remember my mother bringing me hot redcurrant juice with honey. This was the best thing ever. I'd feel better in an instant, and was awake long enough for a movie, such as The Land Before Time.
Let's talk about these redcurrants for a while...
The redcurrant (
ribes rubrum) is native to parts of western Europe, Scandinavia, Portugal, Spain and Poland (and many more). These beautiful, delicious red berries are rich in vitamin C, which is very good during the cold seasons. They also contain iron and magnesium which is very good for the body and bone structure.
Depending on which country you consume them, redcurrants are served in many different ways, shapes and sizes. France, for example, have the Bar-le-duc (lorraine jelly), the UK serve them with lamb or with the Sunday Roast, most of Scandinavia has summer puddings & fruit soups, Germany use them in combination with custard or meringue as filling for tarts.
In Finland we make juice.
Sweet, fantastic, deep red juice.
So fantastic in fact, that I will give you the recipe so you too can devour the awesomeness that is redcurrant juice.
They taste as red as they look
Make your own Redcurrant Juice
If you have your own juicer (Saft Maja in Swedish), then that's fine. I don't own fancy things like that, so I use what I have, and do it the old fashioned style!
Recipe
- 2 litres of redcurrants
- 6 decilitres of water
- 6-7 decilitres of sugar/litre of liquid. The sugar acts like a preservative so no other preservatives needed.
- lemon juice from one lemon
What you do
- scrape the berries off their stems and rinse in cold water
- pour berries, lemon juice and water into a thick bottomed cooking pot
- bring to boil for about ten minutes. Mash the berries so you get as much juice out of them as possible
- pour the juice through a clad sieve (using a scrim or a kitchen towel), into a bowl and let drip for about an hour
After the hour is gone you will have approximately one litre of juice, give or take.
Also during this hour, it'll be wise to rinse the bottles you use with boiling water, just in time so they'll be hot when you bottle the hot juice.
- pour back into cleaned cooking pot, and bring to boil while gradually adding the sugar whilst stirring
- at this point you need to de-foam the juice
- pour into hot, sterilized bottles. Screw on the cap as tightly as possible.
- Store in fridge or in freezer
Now you are a juice expert. This can't go wrong.
The most important thing is to taste. It's supposed to be ickle sweet, that's good. Ickle sweet means it'll preserve without additional preservatives and also that you'll get one hell of a good juice.
For serving you might want mix 1 + 8. Although this is no exact science. Some people like their juice super sweet, some like it less.
At the moment I have about 3,5 litres of juice in my fridge. I am well supplied for the incoming cold season.
Keep warm and happy juicing!
Peace
-L-
Recipe
