Grenadine Syrup

Drinking French

I can't believe that I never realized grenadine was made from pomegranate juice. I'm pretty sure I even knew that "grenade" in French meant pomegranate, but my brain never made the connection until this recipe.

Anyway, I hadn't ever considered making this, but it seemed pretty easy (and it was, even though I had to find a middle eastern market to buy some of the ingredients locally) and there's another recipe I'd like to make that seems like it would be better if I used the homemade stuff, so here it is!

Captions

[00:00]: [Music]
[00:04]: hello and welcome to cooking the books
[00:06]: with heather
[00:07]: today we're going to be working again
[00:09]: from david leibovitz's
[00:11]: drinking french cookbook and i'm going
[00:13]: to be making grenadine syrup so this is
[00:15]: just
[00:15]: a homemade replacement for you know the
[00:17]: bottle of red stuff that you use in
[00:19]: cocktails
[00:20]: um and what i hadn't realized is that
[00:23]: it's
[00:24]: made from pomegranates mostly
[00:26]: pomegranate juice
[00:27]: and pomegranate molasses and i guess
[00:30]: that makes sense
[00:31]: because grenade in french means
[00:34]: pomegranate that's what they're called
[00:37]: so
[00:38]: anyway this is gonna be a really quick
[00:41]: quick recipe um it's pretty much exactly
[00:44]: like making simple syrup but with
[00:46]: pomegranate juice so this is 100
[00:50]: juice you can do it yourself make
[00:53]: pomegranate juice yourself
[00:55]: out of the pomegranates but i don't have
[00:57]: time for that
[00:58]: and uh so i bought a bottle of just 100
[01:02]: pomegranate juice you can find that in
[01:04]: the produce section of most grocery
[01:06]: stores i think
[01:08]: this is just plain granulated sugar you
[01:12]: can
[01:12]: use raw sugar he says but i'm just going
[01:14]: to use granulated sugar to keep the
[01:16]: flavor as
[01:17]: neutral as possible and we're going to
[01:20]: turn this on
[01:21]: he says the lowest heat possible
[01:25]: my low heat is really low i'm going to
[01:27]: go with a
[01:29]: slightly above the lowest heat possible
[01:32]: but not where it will simmer
[01:34]: and all we're looking to do here is to
[01:36]: um
[01:38]: get this sugar dissolved in the
[01:40]: pomegranate juice
[01:42]: so it's going to take a little while to
[01:44]: do this but he says to stir it
[01:47]: the whole time until it dissolves
[01:51]: so hopefully this won't take too too
[01:53]: long
[01:54]: but it's real simple process so all
[01:57]: right
[01:58]: so you can tell it's kind of hard to
[01:60]: tell if the sugar is entirely dissolved
[02:02]: but you can tell a little bit by you
[02:04]: hear a little bit of a scraping
[02:05]: from the sugar granules
[02:08]: scraping the bottom and sometimes when
[02:10]: you um
[02:12]: scrape it when it gets kind of thin you
[02:15]: can see
[02:16]: the sugar in there so we're just waiting
[02:17]: for all of that to go away
[02:20]: okay i'm no longer sort of feeling sugar
[02:23]: or hearing
[02:24]: the sugar scrape the bottom as i stir
[02:27]: and it looks
[02:28]: pretty clear as i stir it so i'm gonna
[02:31]: call this
[02:32]: dissolved so now we're gonna turn off
[02:35]: the heat
[02:36]: two of two of the ingredients for this
[02:38]: were a little bit difficult for me to
[02:39]: find
[02:40]: um i have pomegranate molasses which is
[02:42]: basically just concentrated
[02:44]: pomegranate juice and sugar so like this
[02:47]: but cooked down a lot i don't know about
[02:49]: the uh the ratios but
[02:51]: i found this and
[02:55]: the orange blossom water at a
[02:58]: local middle eastern store they have a
[03:01]: restaurant and then some
[03:04]: things you can buy some ingredients and
[03:06]: things that are very common
[03:07]: in that cuisine and these are the only
[03:10]: two ingredients i'm going to add
[03:12]: but uh if you're not going to be serving
[03:15]: this to children and you want it to
[03:17]: preserve and stay good a little bit
[03:19]: longer you can add
[03:21]: a little bit of vodka and so that's an
[03:23]: optional ingredient in the recipe
[03:25]: i'm not going to be adding it um
[03:29]: so um uh um
[03:32]: uh what i'm gonna say
[03:36]: anyway so we're gonna be serving it
[03:39]: there's a drink that you can make
[03:40]: um that is non-alcoholic for kids and
[03:43]: we're gonna be making that
[03:44]: also he says that to keep it longer you
[03:47]: can
[03:47]: freeze it and because there's a lot of
[03:50]: sugar
[03:51]: um it's relatively easy to sort of
[03:53]: scrape out the amount that you need
[03:55]: while it's still frozen you don't have
[03:56]: to completely defrost it
[03:58]: or you could freeze it in uh cubes and
[04:01]: then you'll have a certain amount every
[04:02]: time you defrost a cube
[04:04]: that's what that's what we did with baby
[04:05]: food and it's really very helpful
[04:07]: uh okay so we're gonna add the
[04:09]: pomegranate molasses
[04:23]: all right i'm just going to stir this a
[04:25]: little bit with this spoon to get the
[04:26]: rest
[04:27]: out because it's very um
[04:32]: very thick so it kind of wants to stick
[04:34]: in the spoon
[04:36]: there we go put the lid on this i don't
[04:40]: know if you have to
[04:40]: refrigerate this i'll have to check
[04:43]: probably not there's a lot of sugar
[04:44]: but and then it's just
[04:48]: a little bitty tiny bit of this orange
[04:51]: blossom water
[04:52]: um you also can buy both of these things
[04:54]: on the internet but
[04:56]: with um packaging and stuff it's
[05:01]: it was much easier for me to go to the
[05:04]: uh
[05:05]: to the market and buy it
[05:09]: so we're just gonna stir this up
[05:12]: and it's done so you'll want to cool
[05:14]: this to room temperature
[05:16]: and then store it in the refrigerator
[05:19]: i mean that orange blossom water smells
[05:21]: really good
[05:23]: very floral there we go
[05:27]: there's our grenadine syrup
[05:35]: so if you enjoyed watching me make this
[05:38]: please give me a thumbs up
[05:39]: hit the subscribe button and come back
[05:42]: and watch and see what i do with this
[05:44]: in a little bit