Friday, July 22, 2011

Brazilian Lemonade

Hello. My name is Anne. And I'm addicted to this drink. I make it all the time. I buy limes in the huge bag from Costco and they're gone within a week. My family is also addicted. Which means they are enabling me. But how we could we survive summer without a refreshing limey beverage? Its not possible. Resistance is futile.

Thanks again Our Best Bites! Another winner!
ps- I copied/pasted directly from their site so the recipe is right out of Kate's mouth.

Ingredients:

4 juicy limes (try and find ones with thin, smooth skins; they’re the juiciest and the thin skin cuts down on the chance of your drink being bitter)
1 c. sugar
6 c. cold water
6 Tbsp. sweetened condensed milk


Directions:


Mix cold water and sugar very well and chill until ready to use. This step can be done ahead of time.


Wash limes thoroughly with soap (I just use hand-dishwashing soap or regular hand soap); you need the soap to get the wax and pesticides off of the limes because you’re using the WHOLE lime, baby. Cut the ends off the limes and then cut each lime into 8ths.


Place 1/2 of the limes in your blender.


Add 1/2 of the sugar water, place the lid on your blender, and pulse 5 times. Place a fine-mesh strainer over a pitcher (the one you’ll serve the lemonade in) and pour the blended mixture through the strainer and into the pitcher. Use a spoon to press the rest of the liquid into the pitcher. Dump the pulp and stuff in the strainer into the trash. Repeat with remaining limes and sugar water. Add sweetened condensed milk; DO NOT leave this step out unless you will die of a horrible sweetened condensed milk allergy because this is the secret ingredient! You may want to taste test it at this point; I used giant, thick-skinned limes tonight and didn’t test it and it came out a little bitter. If it’s bitter, just add some more sugar and maybe a little more milk.
Serve immediately over lots of ice. This does not keep well, so don’t make this in advance (although you can cut the limes, mix the sugar water, and measure the sweetened condensed milk in advance). Serves 4, although I can pretty much guarantee you that people will want more; I usually plan on 1 1/2 servings at LEAST per person.


* a note from Anne, which is actually a tip from my fellow Good Eater, Staci. Don't use the Magic Bullet brand blender. Its too powerful and even if you do it for 5 seconds, its going to pulverize the limes too much and the peel will be too fine to strain out and your drink will taste strongly of lime peel because your drink WILL be lime peel. Long story short: use your regular ol' boring blender, capiche?


**Staci here...editing to add...I actually use a VitaMix and I think it would work fine, but don't blend for more than a second or two. You want the mixture to be VERY chunky. I think the first time I let it go for a good 10 seconds which was WAY too long with the Vitamix.

2 comments:

Riddle Girl said...

You made me take the leap. I have seen this recipe in their cookbook and have thought about making it. With your rave reviews I decided to do it this weekend. So YUMMY! I too have invested in the Costco bag of limes now. I will be making another batch today!

Mary Bergfeld said...

This sounds refreshing and it is beautiful to look at. This is my first visit to your blog, so I took some time to browse through your earlier posts. I really like the food and recipes you share with your readers and I'll definitely be back. I hope you have a wonderful day. Blessings...Mary