Sorrel

There are a million recipes for the sorrel drink.
This is just one.
My mother in laws Sorrel.
Since The Mister and me married, she has been hurriedly trying to teach me all of her Guyanese cooking secrets before (as she says) "I get dotish, an kyan remember nuttin' no more ". She's still bugging me to learn Black Cake, but I must tell you that with all the hand stirring that goes into the making, it looks like a gigantic pain in the ass. Mummy in law says that the hand stirring is the love you put in the cake, and "a han mixxa kyan give yuh dat!".


For 2 litres of Sorrel, you will need:

Clean glass jars or glass juice containers.
1 oz (or 1/4 of a bag) Sorrel blossoms (dried or fresh..but if you get fresh, you'll just have to dry them...so might as well buy the dried ones)
3 cut rinds of orange
3 whole cloves
1 small piece of ginger, peeled.
1 1/2 cups of sugar (or to your taste)
1 Cinnamon stick (about 3 inches in length)
1/4 tsp ground cloves
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
1/4 cup of rum (optional, and not added until it's ready to drink anyway)
2 litres of boiling water


Put all the ingredients in the jar. I have two. One for alchoholic sorrel, the other for plain.


Warm the outside of the jar with hot water, and then slowly add the boiling water.
Stir the contents until the sugar disolves.
Leave on your counter to infuse for a couple of days...but a minimum of 4 hours.
Make sure your sorrel is sufficiently cooled before you put the lid on.

When you're ready to drink it, strain it through a sieve, and return it to the bottle.
This is the time to add the rum...and then refrigerate it until it's sufficiently chilled.

When I first tried sorrel, I expected a perfumy taste, which I don't mind since I'm a lover of Turkish Delight which is made with rosewater...but it doesn't. It has a citrus, spicey pleasant taste.
I quite like sorrel.

Maybe you will too.