All Things Mulberry

My Pakistani mulberry tree starts producing ripe mulberries in early April.  I put a large tarp under the tree because when the berries are ripe, they fall off the tree.  The tarp makes it easier to find the berries and keeps them cleaner.  I sit down under the tree, take my shoes off, then perform what I amusingly call “Mulberry Yoga.”  I scoot, crabwalk, and roll my way around and under the tree, putting ripe berries in a bowl and the unacceptable berries in a little tub.

When the harvest starts, I get 4 to 5 pounds a day just from the tarp.  A week or so into it, the amount slows down to 4 to 5 pounds every few days, and often I shake the tree to make more berries fall.  That is what I end up getting; I cannot estimate what I lose to the birds, squirrels, bunnies, possums, raccoons, and skunks.  I don’t mind sharing with them, and the harvest is large enough that they actually share with me (unlike with my peach tree).

Pakistani mulberries are longer than a “typical” mulberry, and when they are dark purple, they are sweet and flavorful.  When they are dark, they look just like big, fat caterpillars hanging on the tree.

This is about four pounds of berries.

Forty to fifty pounds of mulberries is a lot to handle!  I decided this post would give you a sense of all the things I can do with such a beautiful and large harvest.

First and easiest, eating them fresh!  I’ll eat them right off the tree while picking and they make a great little side dish at lunch.  Fresh berries are excellent with yogurt (I like vanilla yogurt, berries, and a chocolate/coffee granola), and I think mulberries and jack cheese are a great combination (with a white wine, of course!). 

I share with friends, too.  I like to give to people who never had mulberries before; they are often surprised at the flavor.  I know that the mulberries I had as a child were Russian mulberries, which are tart and small compared to mine.  I think most of the people I give them to eat them fresh.

This year I made mulberry jam, where I cut the berries up a little and cook them in sugar with a little lemon juice until they form a syrup and thicken up.  It is not a standard jam because the fruit is bigger so it separates from the syrup more than jam.  It tastes great! I used less sugar than one usually puts into a jam, with the idea that it would be more "fruit forward."  It was, and I store it in the refrigerator to keep it fresh.  I think the next time I do this, I will chop the berries up more or maybe pulse them in the food processor.

Juicy jam.

I also started a batch of liqueur.  First, I put the berries in vodka and let them soak for a while.  Last year they soaked for 6 months before I strained them out; this year I waited two weeks.  This year, too, I used a muddler to press the berries in the jar.  This made a lot of juice, so I couldn’t fit much vodka into the jar.  Oh well, I put in what I could and tucked it away into a cupboard.  A few days later, I smelled ferment.  Sure enough, the juice and berries were bubbling away!  They smelled and tasted good but it was not what I wanted.  So, I moved the mixture into a bigger jar and added more vodka, which stopped the fermenting.

A lovely color, no?

When I strained out the berries, the mulberry-infused vodka was dark purple and the berries were mostly white – a good sign.  It tasted good, but it needed the sugar that makes it a liqueur.  Before I added the sugar, I poured in my attempt this year to make mulberry molasses.  I’ve done this in the past successfully:  basically, it is super-concentrated mulberry juice with a little lemon juice added.  But I didn’t feel I had achieved the molasses-level of reduction and the quantity was so small that I didn’t want to reduce it any further.  Then I added enough sugar to finish filling the jar.  I’ve made liqueurs for decades so I don’t really measure anything.  Now it is officially aging, which allows the flavors to blend and the sugar to dissolve.  In six months or so, I’ll taste it to see if it needs more sugar. 

Last year’s mulberry liqueur had aged for nearly 6 months, so I decanted it into a bottle.  It was wonderful!  Not an epic liqueur, but a very good one.  Smooth, just sweet enough, and a rich, fruity flavor.  The danger with such a liqueur is that it tastes so good that it is easy to consume too much in one sitting.  Sip at your own risk!

Mmmmmm.

This year I’m trying again to make mulberry wine.  Last year’s was good.  I’m not willing to call it a great wine, but it was certainly interesting.  Dry, when most people expect it to be sweet, with a mild flavor that made it clear it was not a grape wine.  One recipient thought it was excellent with a good steak.  This year I’m following the same recipe but most of my sugar was vanilla-scented.  I’m curious to see if that makes a difference in the outcome.

It sure smells good.

My experiment this year was to embed fresh berries in a lot of sugar and watch it turn into a syrup.  I took a picture every day for six days to see the changes.  What a fun and easy way to make syrup!  No cooking, just patience. 

A lot of sugar, layered with mulberries.

The view from above.

Day 1, layering is completed.

Day 2, juice is seeping into the sugar.

Day 3, more juice and it is spreading.  I shook the jar to mix it up a bit.

Day 4, look at that syrup formation!

Day 5, notice how the level has dropped?  I shook it again.

Day 6, that looks amazing.  I rolled it to mix it, too.

I was ready to add more mulberries to the jar, so I got to taste it (on Day 7).  It was unsurprisingly sweet, but I really enjoyed the strong mulberry flavor that went with it.  I added more berries, stirred it thoroughly, then put it into the refrigerator just in case it was tempted to start fermenting.  

In the past, I have made historical mulberries recipes.  One is a sort of breadcrumb pudding, called a Murrey.  You can view the recipe by clicking here.

 Another was a mulberry meatloaf, called a Red Murrey or Red Mulberry.  You can view that recipe by clicking here.  Yes, you read that right.  A mulberry-flavored meatloaf!

The other day I froze a box of mulberries knowing I want to make a cobbler in a few weeks.  

Last year I tried mixing the juice with milk, sugar, and flour, then heating it to make a thick saucelike dessert; this was a riff on an historical recipe that used cherry juice.  Unfortunately, the mulberry juice curdled the milk!  But I recovered from the blow and poured the curds and mulberry whey over sliced bread.  This was well-received and no one knew it was supposed to be different.

So there you have it.  Lots of things to do with mulberries!  I will continue to look for historical recipes that use them, with the hope I can report it on this blog.

Success! 

Fresh Mint Liqueur - From My Most Favorite Cookbook!

I reserve the last post of the year for one of my most favorite recipes.  This time I want to profile one of my most favorite cookbooks.  I realized while making one of its recipes that I have used it regularly for more than 20 years and have never been disappointed.  I've shared it with friends, talked about it with others, and tried a variety of its recipes.  That makes it long overdue for highlighting on my blog.

The book is Classic Liqueurs, The Art of Making and Cooking with Liqueurs by Cheryl Long and Heather Kibbey.  I came across it one day while traveling:  I needed a break from driving and saw a large tent sale of some kind in a parking lot.  What I discovered was a used book sale which was, of course, heaven!  This book just asked to go home with me, and I am so glad it did.

ISBN 0-914667-11-4

Mine is the 1990 edition, and I know there have been other editions since then.  The description on the back cover says it all:

The books tells, simply and exactly, how to make the world's most famous liqueurs as well as exquisite fruit liqueurs in the home kitchen. ... Their easy and natural approach results in high-quality liqueurs.

The chapters include the basics of liqueur making, making fruit liqueurs, and making non-fruit liqueurs, serving and mixing liqueurs, and cooking with liqueurs.  The authors' backgrounds include being a food consultant, an editor of restaurant magazines, teachers of cooking classes, and a food columnist. 

A liqueur consists of three basic ingredients:  alcohol, sugar, and flavoring.  (Although they list "alcohol, water, and flavorings" because they discuss how water quality varies and can influence the liqueur's final result.  Sugar is important, so I include it.)  The alcohols that I've used are vodka and brandy, but you can use other types like pure grain alcohol, cognac, whiskey, scotch, and rum.  

The flavorings vary between fresh and dried fruits, fruit peels, seeds, herbs, and spices.  They recommend other ingredients to adjust the body and smoothness of the liqueur, none of which I have ever used.  

Something you have to know about making liqueurs:  they require a lot of patience.  Quite often they are quick and easy to assemble (like the recipe I describe below) but then you have to wait, often for weeks, while the flavors infuse into the liquid.  After that, you have to wait for months for the liqueur to age.  Planning ahead if you are considering liqueurs as gifts is crucial.  

But oh, it is worth it.  Aging brings a smoothness to the flavor and the mouthfeel.  The taste sensations go from "good" to "sublime."  And while the authors mention that most recipes reach their peak flavor after a year of aging and hold that for up to three years, I have tried my liqueurs after they aged for a decade or more and still found them to be wonderful.  

One aspect of liqueur making that I love as compared to making wine or beer is how little space and equipment you need.  Long and Kibbey's recipes make small batches (which are easily doubled), so I have a few repurposed glass jars which easily tuck onto a shelf in a cupboard to be ignored while the required infusing and aging times are passing.  I have some cloth bags that I use for filtering and some metal mesh sieves that are in my kitchen for other purposes.  The items that take up the most space are the bottles needed for gift-giving.  I noticed I tend to hoard these, but still they don't take up much room in my storage areas.  I suppose if I wanted to make a lot of liqueurs at once I might be pressed for space, but it has never been an issue.  

The only complaint I have had with making small batches is that if a liqueur turns out to be quite exquisite, you only have a small amount of it.  Of course, that makes it even more precious!

The overall concept of liqueur making is simple:  infuse the flavors into the water and alcohol liquid (sometimes sugar is added at this time and sometimes later), strain out the solids, and finally, let the mixture age.  I recommend putting notes into a calendar to remind you when to check on them and move to the next stage.  I also put notes on the container, like the name and the starting/ending dates -- one friend writes the entire recipe she used as part of her container notes, which I think is an excellent idea.  The cupboard should be one that is dark, cool, and out of the way.

Once you understand these basics and have tried some recipes, you can confidently try your own combinations.  They didn't always turn out how I envisioned them, but they have always produced a liqueur that was worth drinking.  I've used fruits like loquats and mulberries, and fruit blends like guavas-and-limes and guavas-and-cranberries.  I've tossed in spices that I thought would go well with a particular fruit.  I currently have a fig leaf liqueur aging.  Once I had a large volume of maraschino cherry juice that I mixed with vodka and a little sugar.  My guest tasters liked it but suggested it needed something more to make it "just right."  One taster figured it out:  a little bit of almond extract did the trick.  

The recipe I want to share with you is a repeat of one I made in 2002 that turned out to be wonderful:  Fresh Mint Liqueur on page 54.

1 1/4 cups fresh mint leaves, slightly packed

3 cups vodka

2 cups granulated sugar

1 cup water

1 teaspoon glycerine*

8 drops green food coloring*

2 drops blue food coloring*

*I skipped these ingredients.

The mint variety is an important choice.

Wash leaves in cold water several times.  Shake or pat dry gently.  Snip each leaf in half or thirds; discard stems.  Measure cut mint leaves, packing gently.

Combine mint leaves and vodka in aging container.  Cap and let stand in a cool place for 2 weeks, shaking occasionally.

After the initial aging, pour liqueur through colander into a large bowl to remove the leaves; discard leaves.

In a saucepan, combine sugar and water.  Bring to a boil, stirring constantly.  Let cool.  Add cooled sugar syrup to mint liqueur base, stirring to combine.  Add glycerine and food color; pour into aging container for secondary aging of 1 to 3 more months.

My Notes

Mint comes in a wide variety of flavors, so if you have the opportunity to choose, consider what you really like about mint.  The first time I made it, I used a variety called chocolate mint (the stems are brownish), which has a mint flavor without the bite of spearmint or peppermint.  I really like that its mint flavor seems deeper, too.  I still have chocolate mint in my yard, so that is what I used here.  Timing is important, too, when using home-grown herbs.  I think spring or early summer is a good time to harvest them.

This is a single batch of the liqueur base:

Clamp lid, "lightning lid", jars are wonderful for this.

So I doubled it:

This is after the initial infusion period.  Notice how the color has changed, and the batch has a lovely mint scent:

This is filtered:

Making the sugar syrup:

In the beginning

Boiling and getting ready to cool.

I have never felt the need to add food coloring to my liqueurs.  I like them just the way they are.  Also, I have never used glycerine.  At first because I just couldn't find it in the stores; later, I felt that the sugar syrups usually give a good mouthfeel.  If they don't, I add a little more sugar, and that fixes the problem.

And here it is in its aging container.  The date is when the final aging began, not the initial infusing.

Planning in June for a December post.

The Verdict

The first time I made this I was new at liqueur-making, and I was astonished and pleased with the result.  The best way to describe the flavor is:  like drinking a candy cane with a kick!  Sweet (but not too sweet), minty in a wonderful way, and then the warmth of the alcohol washes over you.  It was one of the exquisite liqueurs I have made over the years.

So having a large amount of chocolate mint growing in my yard inspired me to try it again.  Doubling the recipe was my choice because of how good I expected it to be.

A close-up of the color with no food coloring added.

Liqueurs are for small quantities that are sipped and appreciated.

After about 5 months of aging, I tasted it.  It was minty without a bite, sweet but not too much so, a good mouthfeel, and reasonably smooth.  I think all of it will improve with more aging.  The double batch made almost 1/2 gallon, which will last me a long time unless I start giving it away.  Christmas is soon, so I just might.  There is plenty to share!

Success, again.  So far it is not at the epic level the first attempt was, but time may change that.  

Others of Long and Kibbey's recipes I've tried are:  apricot, lemon, peach, plum, taboo (citrus and vanilla, one of the epic liqueurs), and crème de cacao (but with cocoa powder, not the liquid chocolate they suggest).  I've also used their recipes as inspiration for other fruits, herbs, and spices in liqueurs.

A Lemon Cordial Follow Up!

My most amazing, wonderful, awesome daughter read my previous post on the Lemon Cordial, made from an 18^th century recipe, that used milk in the process.  In doing so, she recalled an article from Cook’s Illustrated titled “The Key to Crystal-Clear Cocktails? Milk. (Really.)”  It was written by Camper English and published in December, 2016.

The article focused on an old technique to make a “milk punch”:

The base recipe for milk punch includes citrus juice or another acidic ingredient. Milk (usually hot milk) is added to the mixed cocktail, curdling the milk, and then the punch is strained to remove the curds. The process removes most of the color and cloudiness from the drink, clarifying it, and it preserves the cocktail from spoilage for months or even years if kept cool.

The recipe I followed required sliced lemons to be put in milk then heated until the mixture forms curds and whey.  This is strained, and the resulting liquid is mixed with sugar and brandy to form the cordial.  I expected large curds that were distinct from the whey (the recipe said to boil the milk until the whey was “very clear”) but I never saw that because the curds were all small.

I tried filtering out the curds through cheesecloth, but that didn’t work.  I decided to add the brandy and sugar while hoping the cordial would taste right.  The curds started settling out, and the whole appearance was not appealing.  It was then I decided to filter it using a cloth bag. 

The result was a very clear and delicately flavored cordial that tasted of brandy and lemon with a good mouthfeel from the sugar.  I noticed (but did not mention in the post) that the curds had taken on the color of the brandy, and that the cordial was lighter in color after it was filtered.

Mr. English continues with:

The concept of clarifying cocktails with milk might seem a bit odd today, but in the milk punch heyday—the 1700s through the mid-1800s—spirits would have been far rougher around the edges than those we enjoy today, and in addition to clarifying and preserving the drink, the process also softened the harsh flavor of the booze. The resulting drink is unctuous and silky, clear and only subtly milky, with softer, mellow flavors.

What a surprise!  In doing the wrong thing with the original recipe, I stumbled across an historical technique.

Mr. English also tells us:

The earliest known milk punch recipe, as reported by cocktail historian David Wondrich in his book Punch, dates to 1711, and is attributed to housewife Mary Rockett. That recipe calls for a gallon of brandy, five quarts of water, eight lemons, and two pounds of sugar. To it, two gallons of scalding hot “new milk” are added, and after an hour, it is strained through a flannel bag.

He goes on to report on the variations professional bartenders are exploring today:  heating the milk or not, trying a variety of milks (animal and nut), changing the order of the steps, and more.  We are also treated to the science underlying the process, to help us understand the importance of the curds in stripping out the tannins, for example.

The article is a great read and brought insight to me on the lemon cordial recipe.  I recommend reading it!

Now I wonder why the cordial recipe required straining the curds before adding the brandy.  I can understand adding the sugar after straining – otherwise it makes the liquid very thick and slows down the straining process.  If, as Mr. English notes, the brandy in the 1700s was “rougher around the edges than those we enjoy today”, it seems the cordial would taste better if the brandy also came into contact with the curds. 

But perhaps that wasn’t the goal.  Perhaps the goal was to infuse the whey with the lemon flavor, which happens faster than infusing the alcohol with the lemons.  Once it was mixed with the brandy and sugar, you had a nice beverage.

When I put the sliced lemons – pulp, white, seeds, and peel – into the milk, I wondered if the white would make it taste bitter.  Perhaps the curds removed the bitter, and that was another advantage of using milk. 

To say I was as pleased as punch to read this article is an understatement.

A Lemon Cordial - with milk

I was perusing a book in my collection that caught my attention (again) because it had nothing printed on the spine.  But it did have print on the front cover and that was A Book of Cookery.  It is an intriguing book because the author, Kimberly K. Walters, does historical reenactment, and she compiled these recipes from a variety of historical sources to aid her reenactment work.

ISBN 978-0-692-26980-0

Her focus is the 18th century, the American Revolutionary War, and George Washington, but she notes in the "Forword" that she sometimes took from sources just before and after that time when she felt it was appropriate.  

The book contains more than just recipes, which she properly calls "receipts."  It also offers information on how to choose good food items, lists of what items are in season "in the colonies", a detailed description of how and what to serve for dinner courses ("removes"), how the table is to be set, and descriptions of cooking equipment.

As someone who has experience in historical cooking reenactment, I would judge this book to be quite valuable to anyone who wants to learn how to be a Colonial American cooking reenactor.  All you would have to add is equipment, costuming, and a location in which to cook.  

I had fun reading through the recipes.  My goal was to find one that used lemons because my neighbor had left a bag full of them on my doorstep.  There were several recipes that I considered, especially the Lemon Gingerbread on page 190, but I decided to try the Lemon Cordial on page 260.  I have made many cordials and liqueurs before but never one that had milk in it.  I wanted to see what it was like.

Lemon Cordial

Cut six fresh lemons in thin slices, put them into a quart and a half of milk, boil it until the whey is very clear, then pass it through a sieve; put to this whey, one and a half quarts of French brandy, and three pounds of powdered loaf sugar; stir it till the sugar is dissolved - let it stand to refine, and bottle it; pare some of the yellow rind of the lemons very thin, and put a little in each bottle. (Randolph).

My Notes

I decided to scale the recipe down a little.  "A quart and a half" is 6 cups, so the proportions for 2/3 of the amounts are pretty straightforward:

4 lemons (washed!)

4 cups milk

4 cups brandy

2 pounds powdered sugar

After the lemons were sliced and the milk was added, I turned the heat onto high to get the cooking going.  

I notice the curdling started right away.  This is a good thing!  It is how you get the curds and whey.

You can see the curds forming.

Once I saw some bubbles forming in the milk, I turned the heat to medium low.  

And this is where I started running into trouble.  You see, I have made curds and whey before with milk and vinegar (click here to see the post), so I expected the curds to be big and to clearly see the whey.

But that didn't happen here.  I let the mixture simmer for quite a while (a few hours!) and never saw the whey separate as I expected.  After the lemons looked very cooked, I turned the heat off and thought about what to do.

The lemons have gone limp. 

The curds were all tiny.  There was whey but everything was mixed.  I decided to pass it through a strainer lined with cheesecloth, but I was not confident this would work.

And it didn't.  Very little liquid came through; it all looked like it was still captured in the curds and lemon.

Then I decided to use some more fresh milk (1 cup) to rinse the curds off of the lemon slices, with hope I could get all that to sieve out.  I used my hands to gently squeeze the slices and to wipe the curds off of them.  This got the curds off the lemons but it still would not get the moisture out of the curds.  I had a thick, creamy liquid now.  I threw away the lemon slices.

At this point I thought that I would just have to expect a creamy, curdy cordial.  Maybe that would taste good?  So I added the powdered sugar and the brandy, mixing well.

This is a one-half gallon container

I tasted it and it was good!  But I didn't think this was supposed to be the desired result.  The container sat on the counter overnight.  The next day I saw that the curds had begun to settle -- and it was forming layers of what looked like curds in liquid at the bottom, liquid alone in the middle, and a foam on the top.  It made me think of syllabub.  I was not happy with this.

Then it occurred to me.  I should strain it through a cloth bag!  This is what I did when I made liquamen and it worked well to remove very fine particles.  Why did this take so long for me to consider?

Straining it through the bag worked really well.  The liquid was clear!

Unfiltered on the left.  Filtered on the right.

It took two days to let it all filter through.  Patience is a virtue here.  I felt confident that I was getting all the cordial through the bag.  In the end, I had just a little under 1/2 gallon of cordial.

The Verdict

The flavor was a lovely blend of lemon and brandy.  It did not strike my taste buds hard with lemon and it did not taste entirely of lemon.  It was definitely a blend.  The mouthfeel was good - enough of a syrupy texture to make me feel like I was sipping something substantial.  My guest taster and I both liked it very much and would love to have it either before or after a meal, or to go with some cheese and fruit as part of a dessert.

When I made curds and whey previously, I warmed up the milk before I added the acid for curdling.  Perhaps I should have done that here.

I should have filtered just the curds and whey through the bag before adding the sugar and brandy.  I think it would have gone faster as it wouldn't have been as thick. 

I did throw off the proportions a little by using the one extra cup of milk to rinse the lemons.  I think it curdled a little.  I doubt it affected the taste much.

I honestly don't know why the milk was important.  When I made lemon liqueur previously, I just soaked lemon peels in vodka for a few months, strained them out, and added sugar.  This worked just fine and the soaked peels were saved as zest for cooking.  

Of course this cordial took only a few days and it was ready for drinking right away.  I suspect it will improve with aging, which tends to smooth the flavors out.  I guess that the whey might add some thickness or improve the mouthfeel of the finished product.  This is all guesswork!

I call it a success.  I have enough to last a while so it will continue to age in the cupboard.  I need to add some lemon zest to it as per the recipe's recommendation.

Just so you know, "cordial" and "liqueur" are often used interchangeably.  They are both typically vodka or brandy infused with flavors, and sweetened.  Cordials are sometimes considered to be sweeter than a standard liqueur.  This was definitely sweet but not overwhelmingly so.