Cordials

A little while ago the steward of our upcoming Flametree Ball asked if I would consider making some cordial for the event. On the weekend, I found myself wondering what to do with three bags of oranges left over from the Festival Food Fund. So I made cordial and got a tad carried away.

First up, the orange cordial. Three bags of oranges were juiced, yielding a bit over 3 litres of juice (some of which got drunk as is). I used a 13th century Andalusian syrup recipe as the base. It is simply take equal volumes of juice and sugar and simmer until it forms a syrup.

Orange batch #1 - used 2 cups orange juice and 2 cups sugar. End result was okay, but really lacked that orange "tang".

Orange batch #2 - used 3 cups orange juice and 2 cups sugar. End result was a tad more "orangy", but not the right consistency.

Orange batch #3 - used 2 cups orange juice, 2 cups sugar, plus grated rind of 2 oranges. End result was great. Sweet and tangy.

Batches 1 and 2 were mixed together and reheated with grated rind to bring them up to scratch.

Since I was going to be making cordial anyway and it isn't that hard to do a few batches, I picked up some pomegranates to make a batch of pomegranate cordial. Simple equal volume juice and sugar mix. Unfortunately I got a bit distracted and it reduced a bit too much. It went a dark red-brown and tastes a bit caramelly. It would work very well as pomegranate syrup for cooking. Still okay as a cordial, but not as good as it would have been. I also had a bottle of red pomegranate juice in the fridge and decided to make cordial out of that. Definitely not as vibrant a flavour as the fresh stuff.

I also had some rosewater in the cupboard, so I made a batch of rose cordial using Mistress Rowan's recipe. I used a little of the fresh pomegranate juice as natural food colouring to give it a pink tinge.

Then I found frozen raspberries in the freezer, so into the blender they went (amusing that the first thing I use my new red blender for is to blend raspberries that are the same colour as the blender). Puree was sieved, mixed with equal volume sugar and heated to form a syrup. End result was a bit too thick, so I made up some sugar syrup and mixed it in. Perfect. Tastes like raspberry cordial heaven.

So all up, the weekend's efforts produced:

Left to right: Orange, Orange, Rose, Raspberry, Pomegranate, Pomegranate.

Not a bad effort really. Thirsty?