Kitchen Wench

If I had to rank my flavor preferences, I would say that citrus-based desserts are generally near the bottom of the list.  I’d rather eat chocolate or berries before, say, lemon meringue pie.  Generally, I don’t like lemon-flavored sweets because they are either too tart or remind me of dish soap.  But Meyer lemons are an entirely different story.

Meyer lemons are a cross between regular lemons and mandarin oranges.  They have a thinner skin, are not as tart, and have a wonderful tangerine-y fragrance to them.  They have a very short growing season (which is happening right now) and are usually rather expensive.  So, when I saw them for sale in Whole Foods for $1.99/lb, my locavore guilt and hoarding tendencies combined head-on with the rush of impulse shopping, and I walked out of the store with four lbs of lemons.

So, what to do with all these lemons?  Some Googling got me this list of 100 Things to Do with Meyer Lemons (it was like they wrote this article for me).  I’ll admit, some of the suggestions are a bit of a stretch (for instance, “35. Throw a Meyer lemon for your dog to catch and play with”), but most are pretty mouth-watering.  This post is all about number 14, Meyer lemon curd.

Lemon curd is surprisingly easy to make and calls for ingredients that you probably already have on hand.  If you’re ambitious, you could can it, but that’s a bit out of the scope of a weeknight project.  It also freezes well, thank goodness, because I made four cups of it.  This stuff is fantastic over fresh fruit, skyr, yogurt, cheese, cake, bread… Honestly, Meyer lemon curd would make an old rubber tire taste good.  I could drink it straight out of the tupperware.  It’s that delicious.

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I’ve been shaking and tasting my infusions every day and, one by one, they are reaching the point where they’re ready to be strained and drunk.  I’ve been working on a few recipes and will be publishing them as I perfect the proportions.

Here’s my recipe for basil-infused vodka and a lemon and basil vodka gimlet.  (I’m not sure if it’s still technically a gimlet without lime juice, but I don’t know what else to call it.)  I can’t take credit for the flavor combination — I saw it on this blog, but they used a different method to make the drink.  In any case, it tastes amazing: bright, refreshing, and perfect for summer.

Basil-infused vodka

This recipe is based off of Chow’s recipe for a basil digestif.  The digestif recipe calls for Everclear 151 because it picks up the flavor faster than vodka.  Everclear is also really strong, and I probably would not be able to type this blog post after consuming a cocktail made with it!  If you want to use this as a mixer, it is probably worth waiting the few extra days it takes to infuse using vodka.

• 1 cup vodka
• 3/4 cup simple syrup
• 7 fresh basil leaves

Place all ingredients in a clean glass jar with an airtight seal.  (I used Mason jars.)  Seal and allow to infuse for 10 days, shaking vigorously once a day.  Remove basil leaves.  You may wish to leave the basil in for more or less time, depending on how intense you like your flavor.

Lemon Basil Vodka Gimlets

• 2 oz basil-infused vodka
• 1 oz simple syrup
• juice of 1 lemon
• 4 oz club soda
• sprig of fresh basil

Crush the basil leaves in your fingers to release the oils.  Combine all ingredients in a glass with ice.  Stir and enjoy.

Oh, hello there. I haven’t blogged in quite a while, mostly because I’ve been out of town a lot, busy at work, and thus not keeping enough food in my house.  It’s gotten to the point where I’ve been making the same three pasta dishes over and over (penne with either carbonara sauce and peas, amatriciana sauce, or chard, raisins, and ricotta cheese).  I was boring myself.  But now that it’s summer (what happened to May?!), I’m excited again to cook and bake things with all the nice fruits and vegetables in the farmer’s market.

Between reading this article on digestifs on Chow.com and getting a giant bottle of homemade cherry cordial for Christmas, I’ve been wanting to infuse my own alcohol.  On Tuesday, I decided I was going to just do it.  So I spent the next two days running around after work in search of Mason jars and buying an embarrassing amount of vodka from the corner liquor store.  For the record, it’s surprisingly difficult to find larger glass canning jars.  If you live in the District, you’ll need to go to either The Container Store in Tenleytown or True Value Hardware at 17th an P.

Once you have your equipment, it’s pretty easy.  I stuck with gin and vodka, as they have pretty neutral flavor profiles.  You will want to use something with a high alcohol content, as it will draw the flavor out of your fruit/vegetable/herb faster. Beyond that, you just put it in the jar with the alcohol and let it hang out until the flavor is the desired strength. Some recipes also call for the addition of simple syrup, but otherwise there’s not much else to it.  Currently in the works are cucumber, blackberry, and ginger gins and lemon, orange, grapefruit, Asian pear, basil, rosemary, and Darjeeling tea vodkas.  I also made a small bottle of Sunshine bitters.  I also whipped up some ginger and lime simple syrups, along with homemade grenadine.

Right now I’m still waiting for most of my flavors to finish infusing.  If they don’t taste terrible, I will post the recipes, along with any original cocktail creations.  I’m generally planning to keep it fairly simple — cucumber gin and tonics, lemon basil vodka gimlets.  However, I am getting pretty excited at the prospect of an alcoholic Arnold Palmer with tea vodka and lemonade.  I’m also contemplating the future: Green tea vodka, soda, and lemongrass simple syrup? Coffee vodka with vanilla bean syrup?  Well, maybe I’m getting ahead of myself here…  I had no idea it would be this fun.  So many possibilities… in the meantime, I need to clean my apartment so I can start inviting people over for drinks.