Period Lemonade

This evening, I sat down to make some Syrup of Lemon. When I got home from work, I had to do some car repairs, and I re-learned the valuable lesson that lemon juice and cuts and scrapes to not go together. I should have worn some nitrate gloves.

I was making the syrup, based on my award winning 13th century lemonade (based on the Anonymous Andalusian Cookbook) for Mistress Orianna Fridrikskona. I started with four pounds of lemons, zested and juiced. 

The juice and zest went over high heat while I sliced off about a pound of Piloncillo sugar. This stuff is sticky and hard to cut. I just put it upright on a paper plate and started slicing off chunks. The other half of the block went into a zip-top bag and was put away. My sugar slices went into the hot juice[1].

Once the sugar had dissolved, I reduced the heat to a simmer and let it cook down for about an hour, stirring often. Just a warning. Molten sugar is kitchen napalm: do not let it over boil as it will make a big mess.

Don't worry about the seeds, it will take more time to fish them out than you think. Just let them boil away: they won't add any flavor to the liquid.

After an hour, I poured the mixture through a strainer, which took care of the zest and seeds, into a measuring cup. I rinsed the leftovers with clean water and discarded them. The zest had given their all. I ended up with 350ml of syrup. As you can see, the final product is very dark. That is not only due to the molasses in the Piloncillo sugar, but because I had cooked the sugar. If I had kept the liquid at a boil, and boiled out all of the water, I could have made candy. Yummy, yummy candy.

The key to this syrup is to cook about half of the water out of the liquid by keeping in at a simmer instead of a full boil, and to keep the sugar moving. We don't want it to burn on the bottom of the pot. 

I let the syrup sit on the counter, and cool, for 30 minutes and then poured it into a bottle. The Anonymous Andalusian Cookbook does not give any suggestions for using this syrup:

Syrup of Lemon

Take lemon, after peeling off the skin, press it [to a pulp] and take a ratl of juice, and add as much of sugar. Cook it until it takes the form of a syrup. Its advantages are for the heat of bile; it cuts the thirst and binds the bowels.

Nor is this syrup mentioned anywhere else in the cookbook, but, you most certainly can dilute it in hot or cold water and make lemonade. I have poured this over pound cake (poke some holes in the top of the cake, first), and I think that it would be a good glaze on grilled chicken (I haven't tried it, yet), or just spooned into hot tea.

You can use this same method with white, refined sugar, but I don't think you end up with anything as good.

[1] Hot Juice is the name of my band.