To: North American Fruit Explorers <nafex@lists.ibiblio.org>
Subject: Re: [NAFEX] white currants
Date: Sat, 30 May 2009 09:25:07 -0400
On May 30, 2009, at 9:13 AM, William C. Garthright wrote:
I eat them fresh and make juice. While others will disagree, I think
white currant juice is far superior to red or black - excellent!
How do you extract the juice? Is there a simple way, without buying a
juicer?
I make red currant juice as the first step in making red currant
jelly. I fill my spaghetti pot about 2/3 to 3/4 with currants, stems
and all. Then I mash them a little with my fingers, so there is some
liquid at the bottom, so that the lowest berries won't overheat when I
cook them. Then I heat gently, stirring a little and mashing them a
bit with the back of a plastic cooking spoon until the currants are
sort of white and muddy-looking, and collapse. (I follow the details
in "the Joy of Cooking" under the section on making jelly, except
currants are juicy enough and have enough pectin that I add neither
water nor any jelling agent.)
Then I strain the mess through a sieve into a smaller pot, to continue
with the jelly-making process. I press it down a little, but don't
use any serious mechanical aids like a foley mill. Most of the juice
runs out pretty easily. In fact, you get a clearer juice if you don't
press at all.
I have a large, very fine, stainless-steel sieve, but I've also used
an ordinary sieve with cheesecloth. If you use cheesecloth you should
wet it thoroughly before putting it in the sieve, otherwise it will
absorb a lot of the juice.
This juice makes magnificent jelly. I've never tried drinking it by
itself, but I imagine that if you added a little sugar and possibly
diluted it a bit it would be very tasty.