Showing posts with label margaritas. Show all posts
Showing posts with label margaritas. Show all posts

Sunday, February 22, 2015

Pomelo Margaritas #NationalMargaritaDay


Whole chunks of juicy pomelo blended with demerara simple syrup, tequila and Grand Marnier make a refreshing margarita, perfect for the National Margarita Day celebration. 

As I’m puttering about the kitchen, cooking and baking and cleaning up after myself, I either listen to music or podcasts that don’t take a whole lot of concentration to follow. One of my favorites is Spilled Milk, presented by Molly Wizenberg and Matthew Amster-Burton, where they cook and eat food, and, as they say, we listeners don’t get any. I always learn something from those two and enjoy a few laughs as well. For instance, in the podcast Classic Cocktails, I learned that many bars are using different sugars, like muscovado or demerara, in their simple syrups, which add depth of flavor along with the necessary sweet component in cocktails. Some bars amp that up by making what they call “rich” syrup instead of simple syrup by doubling the amount of sugar instead of using the normal 1:1 sugar/water ratio. Intriguing!

That program came back to me when I read that crunchy demerara sugar is great to sprinkle on pomelo and I decided to use it to make my simple syrup for pomelo margaritas. It was an excellent choice and I may never make plain white sugar simple syrup again.

Which brings me to the point of this post, the National Margarita Day celebrations, organized and hosted by Heather of girlichef!  Make sure you scroll down to the bottom and check out all the great drinks and tasty treats we are sharing today!

Ingredients
For the margaritas:
3 cups or 450g pomelo, thoroughly cleaned of white pith
6 oz or 180ml tequila
3 oz or 90ml Grand Marnier
3 oz or 90ml demerara simple syrup or to taste
Ice to fill rest of blender

For the demerara simple syrup:
1 cup or 230g demerara sugar
1 cup or 240ml water

Optional: flakey sea salt for glass rims

Method
To make the simple syrup, warm your water and sugar in a small pan on the stove, stirring until all the sugar has dissolved.

Remove from heat and allow to cool. This can be stored in the refrigerator in a clean jar almost indefinitely.


Peel your pomelo by feeling for the indentation of where the fruit starts at the stem end.


Cut the end off right about there.



Open the hole at the top so you can see where the division of the slices are.

Make vertical cuts in the peel from top to bottom between the slices.



Peel back the thick skin to reveal the fruit inside.


Now separate the pegs or slices and remove the thick membrane from each.

Cutting the top off of with scissors will open the membrane up so it can be more easily removed.

If any white pith is stuck to the fruit, slice it off with a sharp knife.

My pomelo was a huge guy, weighing 1.5 kilos or 3 lbs 5 oz. and he was almost as big as my head. After peeling and removing all the pith, he was still just over one kilo or 2.2 pounds - big enough to make two blenders of frozen margaritas.

Seriously. Almost as big as my head. 

To blend the margaritas, put the chunks of carefully peeled pomelo in your blender along with the tequila, Grand Marnier and simple syrup.

Fill the blender with ice and blend until smooth.


Run a spare piece of pomelo around the rim of your glasses and dip them in flakey sea salt to coat, if desired.



Pour your pomelo margarita into your prepared glass and garnish with a bit of pith-free pomelo peel and a sprinkle of some of the loose pomelo pips, if desired.



Enjoy! If you’ve never tried pomelo, it tastes like a cross between an orange and a grapefruit, with a milder bitterness than grapefruit.








How are you celebrating National Margarita Day? Might I suggest some of these delicious options?

Margaritas:
Margarita-inspired food:















Friday, June 1, 2012

Consistently Delicious Margaritas



The weekend is here AND it’s summer! So here’s a recipe for those of you who can get your hands on Minutemaid Frozen Limeade Concentrate wherever you are in the world.  I don’t even know where I first learned to make this frozen concoction that helps Jimmy Buffett hang on but I know we were making them during my college years at UT Austin, and that is a very long time ago. 

(For those of you who cannot get it, I found this recipe here.  Haven’t tried it yet but the comments section says it can be used exactly like the concentrated limeade  I can’t wait to try this when I am home with my own freezer because I haven’t seen Minute Maid for sale in Cairo.  Further bulletins as events warrant.)

Like my rum punch, the measures are simple and you cannot screw this up.


Ingredients
1 small can Minute Maid Frozen Concentrate Limeade (6 oz or 177ml)
1 can's worth tequila (6 oz or 177ml)
1/2 can's worth Cointreau, Triple Sec or Grand Marnier (3 oz or 88ml)
Ice


In Kuala Lumpur (where my can came from the Mini Mart – oh, how I miss you, dear Mini Mart – they only have the large cans, so I had to use a measuring cup instead of the can itself for measuring.  I took two cans with me in a cooler on the plane to Cairo when we moved, in case you are wondering, along with bacon, sausage, a pork roast and pecans.  Traveling light are not words in my vocabulary, apparently.  You have got to know what's important, folks. Priorities!

Anyhoo, on to margaritas.

Method
In a good blender with the power to crush ice, mix together the limeade concentrate, the tequila and the Cointreau.




Add in a few cubes of ice and start blending.


Keep dropping in cubes of ice through the hole in the blender lid until the level almost reaches the top of the blender.  Sometimes you have to give the ice cube a small poke to make it fall through the frozen concoction as the blender gets more full.  You will know it has reached the blades by the grinding noise.





Blend until all the chunks of ice are completely gone. 


If you want salt around the rim of your glass, dip one finger into the blender of margaritas and then run it around the rim.  Turn the glass over in a saucer with a thin layer of salt in the bottom.   Turn upright once more and fill.  (Sorry - forgot to take a photo of this step.)

I don’t have pretty margarita glasses but it tastes just as delicious in these.  


Happy Summer!  Enjoy!