Red, White & Blueberry Lemonade | Strawberry Blueberry State Fair Lemonade | Food Wishes

Hello, this is Chef John from foodwishes.com with red, white, and blueberry lemonade. That's right, we're infusing our world famous state fair lemonade recipe with fresh strawberries and blueberries to create an even more beautiful, possibly more delicious drink. And while we're posting this to celebrate the 4th of July, this would be good on other days such as every other one of them. So, with that, let's go ahead and get started with our red, white, and blue ingredients, which will include some freshly half strawberries, some blueberries, of course, followed by about half of our white sugar. And once that's in the bowl, we'll take a potato masher and we'll give this a brief smashing. And we don't need to mash this into a puree. Right, pretty much as soon as we've broken all the blueberries open, we can stop. And yes, we could do this without adding the sugar first, but the friction from the sugar helps break it down and prevents splashing and there's less chance you're going to have to change your shirt. But anyway, once our mixture is looking like this, we can go ahead and grab our lemons and a nice sharp vegetable peeler. And we're going to go ahead and peel off just the zest and add it to the bowl. And I do mean only the zest, okay? But we don't want any of the white pith since, as we say in the state fair lemonade business. If you see any white, this drink will not be ripe. And that's because all those beautiful fragrant lemon oils are in the yellow part of the skin. And the white part underneath is extremely bitter. And if too much of that stuff gets incorporated into this mixture, it's going to leave a very unpleasant aftertaste. So, please take your time and make sure you're getting nothing but that yellow zest. And then what we'll do once we've trimmed off the zest is we'll set those lemons aside and we'll eventually have those and squeeze the juice out. But before we get to that step, let's go ahead and dump in the rest of the sugar and then give this a nice thorough mixing, at which point we're going to cover this and let it sit on the counter for at least two hours. Right? That's the minimum. And if we can, we'll go even longer. And I went six hours this time. And by letting our fruit and zest sit in the sugar, it's going to draw out all those incredible flavors. And by the way, this process is called oliosacum, which means oily sugar. And it really is the secret to producing a perfect lemonade. And by the way, as this sits, you can give it a stir once in a while. Oh, and please note, when I rewrap this, I'm going to place the plastic over the top. Right. Earlier, I pressed it down on the surface out of reflex, but these juices are so precious. I don't even want to waste a few drops that attached to the plastic, which yes, I did lick off between shots, but still better to place the plastic over the top. And that's it. 6 hours later, my mixture looked like this. And I'll give it one last stir to show you what it looks like. And once the oliosacum step has been completed, we can head to the stove where we have five cups of boiling water. And we'll transfer this mixture in and immediately turn off the heat. And what we'll want to do is let this sit for about five minutes, during which time we'll give it a couple stirs. And after about 5 minutes or so, all that sugar should be dissolved, which by the way, I referred to as melted one time. And a scientist actually sent me an email and was not happy at all and explained the difference between sugar melting and sugar dissolving. But anyway, the point is after that long, the sugar should be fully melted and the mixture will be ready to pass through a fine mesh strainer. And sure, we could do this right in the same bowl we did our ooliosacum. Except I wasn't sure that glass bowl I used was heat proof. So, I played it safe and used a metal bowl. And when we do this, we're really only interested in the liquids. All right, we can press and squeeze a little bit, but I'm really not wanting a lot of that pureed fruit to pass through, which might thicken up the texture. Okay, no one's ever been drinking lemonade and said, "This is good, but I wish it was more viscous, so don't be too aggressive." And then what we need to do is let this cool down to room temp before we squeeze in our fresh lemon juice. Okay, I'm not exactly sure how big of a difference it would make, but it just seems like putting fresh lemon juice in a hot liquid is going to take away some of that freshness. And as far as how many lemons to actually squeeze in, we are definitely going to squeeze the six we zested. And then depending on how much juice we got from that and how our lemonade's tasting at that point, we can always add a few more. So basically, you're doing this to taste. I mean, you are after all the John Cle of how many lemons to squeeze. And that's it. Once our fresh lemon juice has been added, and we're very, very happy with how this tastes, we will carefully transfer that into some kind of pitcher or other porable container. And yes, I'm using a ladle because every time I try to pour from a bowl, it spills everywhere. And trust me, as I mentioned earlier, you don't even want to waste one drop of this stuff. And that's it. We'll transfer it into the fridge until it's completely chilled before we serve that up in some nice ice filled glasses. And I'm going to go ahead and pour two, one for me and one for Michelle. And maybe we'll garnish that with a little extra fruit just to kind of remind people what they're about to enjoy. And that, my friends, really is an incredible lemonade. Right. As much as I love our original Statef Fair lemonade recipe, I have to say I might actually like this one better. Right. We get that little bit of extra sweetness and tartness from the berries, which for very obvious reasons work very nicely with the lemon. And of course, never underestimate the power of color to affect someone's perception of what they're drinking or eating. Which is why when they do blind taste tests and they have the exact same lemonade and they put a few drops of food coloring in one and call it pink lemonade. That is the one that wins the taste test every time. And I know they're popular in the magazine shoots and your assorted high-end food blogs, but I don't think you should ever use a straw for lemonade. Right. First of all, you're going to drink it too fast. And one of the best parts of the experience is that ice on lip contact, which is way more refreshing and bracing. So, if there was ever a beverage that should be sipped, it's this one. Of course, having said that, drink it any way you want, as long as you promise to make and drink it somehow, since I promise this will be one of the most delicious lemonades you've ever had. And I really do hope you give it a try soon. So, please follow the links below for the ingredient amounts, a printable written recipe, and lunch info as usual. And as always, enjoy.