When the summer comes, you can see bunch of stands next to the roads selling fresh strawberries — at least in the town I am living in. Some are so delicious that I sometimes wonder if I owned that land to make a living selling strawberries, would I be able to stop myself from eating them all?

Last week, I asked a friend to come with me to locate a farmer’s market that another friend has mentioned. We drove to that direction, but nothing ;( As we were driving, there were signes to the “Fresh Strawberries” which draw our attention and 2 mins later, we were already buying two baskets. As we were about to leave I saw this huge carton box filled with berries, marked as “seconds.” And sure enough I got them to make strawberry jam & syrup…

There were 7lbs total; 1 went into immediate consumption, 4 for jam and the last 2lbs made this nice syrup.

Here is all I needed:

1. 2 lbs ( about 1kg) strawberries, cleaned, hulled and washed
2. 2 lbs sugar
3. 1/2 lemon juice

And here is what I did with them:

1. Left the strawberries with 1/2 lb of sugar for an half hour or so. This helped to get the mix juicy
2. Cooked them in a very low heat for about 30 - 40 mins, until they are all soft, mushy
3. Put the strawberries through a sieve, into the pot again ( you have to use another, intermediate pot for this operation), and used a spoon to push through as much as I did. The left overs went to the compost bin
4. Added the remaining sugar to the juice, and stirred well
5. Cooked them until it is boling and added the lemon juice. Boiled for another 10 mins or so, and divided into sterilized jars.

So far we have been drinking them by mixing with sparkling water; only about pouring 1cm into a glass seems to be enough for us. It would be nice topping for icecreams as well.

This entry was posted on Saturday, May 14th, 2005 at 7:24 pm and is filed under Drink. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.