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Mother's Fruit Punch
12 oranges 4 lemons 1 cup juice canned pineapple 2 cups water Sugar 2 quarts ice water or ginger ale 1/2 cup maraschino cherries 2 lemons sliced Squeeze the oranges and four of the lemons. Add the pineapple juice. Cut the orange and lemon rinds into strips; add water and sweeten to taste. Boil until tender; add 2 quarts water or ginger ale to the fruit juices. Pour over blocks of ice, garnish with cherries and sliced lemon and serve in large punch bowl. Serves 12.
A straightforward citrus punch whose only trick is the rind syrup, which is where nearly all the flavor comes from. Read the sugar step before you start, since the original leaves the quantity to you.
- The hinge: strain the rind syrupThe hinge: the rind syrup -- The strips of orange and lemon peel are boiled in the 2 cups of water with sugar to make a flavored syrup. The original does not say what becomes of the peel; straining it out before combining with the juices is the usual reading. Letting the peel simmer well past tender can draw bitterness from the white pith.
- How much sugar"Sweeten to taste" here means a syrup; 1 to 1 1/2 cups sugar to the 2 cups water suits most palates, less if you are finishing with ginger ale, which is already sweet. Taste the finished punch cold, since chilled liquid reads far less sweet than warm.
- Juice yieldsTwelve oranges give roughly 4 to 4 1/2 cups juice and four lemons about 3/4 cup, depending on variety. Fruit varies enough in sweetness and acidity that it is worth tasting before adding all the sugar.
- Canned pineapple juiceThe wording is ambiguous: it may mean the syrup drained from a can of pineapple, which is sweeter than unsweetened pineapple juice, or bottled/canned juice as such. Either works; the drained-syrup version will make the punch sweeter.
- Blocks of iceA single large block or a few big cubes melt slowly and keep the punch from watering down over an hour of serving. Freeze water in a loaf pan or bowl the day before rather than using small cubes.
- Ginger ale timingIf you use ginger ale rather than ice water, add it at the last moment and pour it down the side of the bowl. Stirring it into the base early flattens it.
- YieldServes 12 as stated. Total volume before the ice is about 4 quarts, so closer to 1 1/3 cups a head, with room for a second glass.