Hideko's Magical Lemonade

This entry was written by guest contributor PKG

A few summers ago I was a member of the Crystal City runners, and we used to meet on Wednesday evenings at a big condo across from Reagan National Airport. After the five mile runs, we would sit in front of a fountain and consume refreshments. A young Japanese couple belonged to the group; the husband was attending graduate school at GWU. The wife, Hideko, would bring a bottle of a mysterious lemon concentrate and some paper cups. She would then pour each of us a small amount of the lemon concentrate, and then she would cut it with water and hand a cup to each of us. The rest of Crystal City runners began calling it our lemon elixir.

After a few weeks, I began to get curious about this lemon elixir. I asked Hideko to tell me the recipe. Hideko had a shaky command of English, and when she told me that it consisted of only lemons and honey, I thought that I had misinterpretated her, because I could taste no honey in it. Now when I make Hideko's Magical lemonade for guests, I always ask if anyone can guess the ingredients: no one has ever guessed honey.

Three items are needed to make HML: 3.5 lbs of lemons, one 32 ounce (2 lbs) jar of honey, and a medium sized Tupperware container (roughly 7" in diameter and 5" deep).

Slice the lemons thinly, about 1/8 inch if possible. Discard the ends of the lemons and as many seeds as you have patience to pick out. Layer the lemon slices in the Tupperware container until full. Next, pour the honey on top of the lemon slices. It takes several minutes for the viscous honey to fill the spaces among the lemon slices. Once the Tupperware container is filled with a solid mass of lemon slices and honey, seal tightly and place the Tupperware container in the fridge. It takes 6 to 8 hours for a magical chemical process to completely turn the lemon slices and honey into the lemon concentrate. After about 3 or 4 hours, flip the Tupperware container so that it's laying on its top.

After the chemical process is complete, strain the resulting lemon concentrate, which will be much less viscous than the honey. You will have ~3.5 cups. I like to make homemade lemon soda with it by cutting the lemon concentrate with 3 or 4 parts sparkling water and stirring vigorously. Store the remaining lemon concentrate in the empty honey jar and enjoy.

I suppose that any citrus fruit can be treated in a similar manner, so there's a lot more experimenting with this technique yet to do. I'm planning an experiment in the future to reuse the old lemon slices in a broth for poaching chicken.