Any Ginger Cordial recipies?

Dean

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Jan 24, 2004
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Ingredients: Makes one bottle
2 cups sugar
2 cups water
1 piece lime rind or 1 piece fresh lemon rind (no white)
1 large gingerroot, chopped
2 teaspoons cream of tartar
1 cup lemons or 1 cup lime juice



Directions:

Prep Time: 10 mins

Total Time: 40 mins

1 Boil the water, sugar, ginger, rind and cream of tartar for 5 minutes.
2 Add the lemon or lime juice.
3 Bring to the boil again.
4 Take off the heat, strain and pour into a sterilised bottle which will hold approximately 6 cups of liquid.
5 Use like ordinary cordial, either with iced water for a cooling drink, or hot water for a warming drink on a winter's night.


Hope this helps Tony.
 

Tony

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Thanks guys, I'm a typical newbie starting a new thread rather than finding the old one :D

We've got a few elder flowers still about and so I'm thinking of doing a second batch but with ginger in as well and then some ginger on it's own....
 

Miyagi

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Aug 6, 2008
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Might try that out - ginger cordial.

We got delivered a box of ginger the other day and as I ain't making Asian/Oriental food everyday for the next four weeks with it, I was stuck for ideas.

Cheers guys

Liam

Edited to add;

I've also lemons, limes, tartar andsugar needing used - brilliant!!!
 
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SussexRob

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Dec 26, 2010
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Thread revival warning!!

How did your's go Tony?

I made some last night, to the recipie that dean refers to. I used a lot (or what I thought was a lot) of ginger and I have found that there is a hint, but not enough to call it ginger cordial. The lemon completely over powers the ginger in taste. I think I need to adjust quantities, as its more of a lemon cordial with a hint of ginger.

I also get a thick white sediment covereing the bottom of the bottle, which I am guessing is sugar?..

In all, a nice cordial, but more refining needed to suit my taste i think.
 

Tony

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Ahh, I was going to come back to this, we'll I made a mix between BR and Dean's, what I got was a sweet liquorish flavour with a hint of ginger and I used a fair bit of ginger. So it's a lovely drink but not what I'm looking for right now. I'm going to copy BR's accurately but with a little less chilli and see how that goes. I'm enjoying experimenting and I realise more and more that it's all experimenting :D

Saying that I might only put half the star anise and not so much dark sugar...
 

SussexRob

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Dec 26, 2010
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This one?

Had a stab today for fun whilst I was making up my mulled wine syrup


Tried it like this:

4 thumb sized pieces of Root ginger coarsely grated
1 star anise
1 coarsely chopped chilli
250ml of dark muscavado sugar
1litre of water

Brought it all to the boil and then kept it there until it reduced by half

Strained it through a jelly bag

Took a teaspoon and drank some

:eek::eek::eek:

Damn stuff nigh on burned my mouth out.

Diluted with 50% water...ahh just chemical burns this time:eek:

Diluted to about 20% strength. Now tastes like a slightly less sticky ginger wine..nice and warming...sort of like Dorset Ginger (or Rochester Ginger)....but not. Less sweet, more fire, little aniseed twist.

Worth trying for sure

Red

Your quite right about the fun of the experimenting, even as I was reducing mine, I was thinking of ways to improve it. It was all a bit "off the cuff" for me this time. For instance I only strained it through a seive, I should probably get a muslin or something similar.

I like the idea of dark sugar. Definately one for the next batch.

The problem I had was bottles, as I didn't have any glass ones and with it being a spur of the moment thing at 6pm, had no shops to go to other than waitrose. Anyway, found some bottled water in 750ml glass bottles for 91p each, perfect!
 

Tony

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we've got ikea 1lt bottle with the clip down plastic lids with seals, Shelly had 3 of them bleached out ready for me and i produced about 700ml of cordial :D

Yeah, that one, I didn't put any chilli in it but I put some lime and lemon zest and reduced it from 1.5lt to about 700ml
 

British Red

M.A.B (Mad About Bushcraft)
Dec 30, 2005
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I must confess I omit the star anise now...but I add a cinnamon stick and the juice and zest of an orange.....

Less liqourice more fruit.....
 

Brewers Whoop

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Dec 19, 2008
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These sound fab drinks just on their own as a cordial. But I'm also picturing them in a nice chunky glass with a nip of malt on a cold winters night!
 

Tony

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Right then, I did another two lots,

First one

2lt water
Half star anise
one med sized chilli
Lime zest and half of the juice
250gms dark sugar
50gms white sugar
A stack of ginger :D

Bring it all to the boil, simmer till it's reduced (this one went down to about 850ml)
Left it over night
Strained it into a bottle

result - quite a strong drink, still sweet, better with the chilli in it for some bight as there's not a lot of ginger taste that's come through, some but not a lot.
I see this one as an interesting improvement on my first try but i'd not aim to make it again, although I will be making one with a bigger chilli and no star anise just to see :D

Second one
2lt water
couple of the spikes of the star anise
a few little bits of chilli taken from the other one
Lime zest and half of the juice
250gms light brown sugar
50gms white sugar
A stack of ginger :D

This one reduced down to about 900ml
result - I think this is the better tasting of the two, less liquorish flavour, more bite from the ginger, a lighter drink, partly down to the sugar as well.
I think that this would be the base that I move on from in trying new recipes, a bit more chilli to this, no star anise, slightly less sugar.

I've ordered some of the ginger concentrates you can get to see what they're like. I think the biggest thing for me is that I'm getting little bite from teh ginger through, this may be because of the strength of the star anise and too much sugar.
 

SussexRob

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Dec 26, 2010
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Thanks for posting those Tony, I think I'll have a crack at your second one sometime this week. I've not had chance to play since my first attempt due to decorating the flat.

It's a real clout from the ginger I'm after, one similar to when I make my ginger "tea". All I do for that is chop a load of ginger up, boil it up in a suacepan with lemon juice for about 10 min, and serve in a cup with a teaspoon of honey. The interesting thing is that the ginger infuses a hell of a lot more, it assume the sugar in a cordial mix hinders it, as well as the obvious sweetness from the sugar taking the edge off.

I think will try boiling up just the ginger for a fair while before adding the other ingredients.
 

Tony

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Umm, I'll have to weigh the stack next time, after grating it up it was a pile about the size of ummm, ahhhh.....an orange so a medium handful for you and me :D It's far more than the 4 thumb sized bits that I used first time.
 

SussexRob

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Dec 26, 2010
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East Grinstead
Had another go on Monday night, loosely based around Tony's 2nd recipie.

2 Large roots of ginger, grated.
1 cheyenne chilli pepper
good glug of lemon juice
cup of muscavado suger
cup of caster sugar
750ml of water

Boiled it all up and reduced it to around 450-500ml

A much nicer flavour this time, the muscavado gave it a nice edge and there is plenty more ginger clout this time. I over did the chilli though, whilst it tastes nice, it's very warm on the way down!

Next go will use less chilli, possibly some star anise, but I'm wondering about throwing in a cinnamon stick instead.
 
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