Ginger Lemonade Concentrate

My mother makes lemon juice concentrate and stores in the refridgerator. She makes it a point to store such stuff whenever we are on vacation. She bottles the concentrate and sends it over to my sisters. She may have to refill often whenever my husband is around and any of her grandchildren.

I love ginger in the juice as much as in my tea. I add ginger to the recipe she follows to make ginger lemonade.

Make a puree of ginger, and extract the juice; boil it with the sugar while making the syrup and add to the extracted lemon juice. It is as simple as that.

The concentrate does not use any preservative. Hence has to be stored in the refridgerator. But keeps well for about 20 days provided it lasts that long. Beyond that period, there will be a tinge of bitter tangy taste of rotting fruit.

Given below is with some 10 very juicy lime fruits that yielded about 350 ml of concentrate.

1o numbers medium size but very juicy lime fruits

2X2'' piece ginger

400 grams granulated sugar

1/2 cup water

Wash the lime, cut and squeeze out the juice.

Peel the ginger and chop. Run this in a blender adding water. When pulped, pass this through a strainer and extract the juice.

In a heavy utensil, dissolve sugar in the water. Add the ginger extract to the sugar.

Boil the mixture for about 5 -7 minutes to form a syrup.

Simmer for another 3 minutes.

Allow to cool completely.

Once cool, add the lemon juice extract and mix well.

Store in clean bottles.

To serve, add three parts of water to one part concentrate. Drop thinly sliced lemon zest and serve chilled.

The quantity of sugar can be adjusted according to requirement. The ratio of sugar to juice extract from lime is about 4:1, sugar:lime juice extract.

You may use lesser sugar for the concentrate and add more sugar while serving.