It was a colleague of my sister, who gave us this recipe. Perhaps I shouldn't publicise it if it's a traditional, secret recipe... but a couple of years after sharing it with us they had to ask us for a copy, since they had lost theirs! :-) So I suppose I'm entitled to.
Anyway, this is reaaaaly good stuff. if you don't know what elderflowers taste like, try Fanta Shokata from triple-c. It's carbonated, and with way too much lemon and sugar, has a silly brand name (what's "ShoKata" supposed to mean?) but otherwise it's good. Anyway it's unarguably much better than anything else coming out of the coca-cola company. But now for the real thing: this is what swedish midsummer taste like...
(Suddenly I realise that my english vocabulary is not suited for translating recipes... bear with me. )
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INGREDIENTS
Elderflowers (20 clusters)
1 1/2 l water
2 l sugar
2 lemons
50 g citric acid
Wash the clusters, heat water and sugar until you have a nice fine syrup. Add the citric acid to that. Peel the lemons and grind the peelings. Squeeze the lemons. Pour the syrup over the elderflowers, add the limonade and the grinded peelings. Put in refrigerator for 5 days, covered with a damp cloth (or perhaps glad-pack if you have aromatic things in your refigerator)
Strain it to remove the flowers and lemon seeds etc. Although the citric acid works as a preservative, it doesn't keep all that well - I suggest you freeze some of it. Oh, if you have a big pot, I suggest you double this recipe, because it disappears all too soon.
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In Sweden and Norway, elderflowers bloom in the latter part of june and the beginning of july. It's brobably earlier further south, but the season is not very long, and the early flowers are somewhat better than the later ones. So be prepared.
Posted by vintermann at June 26, 2003 09:32 PM