As Paul mentioned in his last post, we needed a recipe to use the juice from the 22 Sorrento lemons that he zested for the limoncello. I’ve been ordering lemon granita and lemon sorbetto all over the place here in Italy, as I am crazy about anything lemon, so was inspired to see what it would be like to make granita al limone at home. It turns out that it’s not hard at all and I am very happy with the results. Plus, especially now that it is nearly 100 degrees during the day here in Bologna, it helps to be able to come home and find something icy and refreshing waiting in the freezer.
So, if you have a lemon tree and don’t know what to do with all of the lemons, just made limoncello and don’t want to waste the juice, and/or simply love lemon things like I do, I would highly recommend you try this. Try to choose a day to make it when you will be home for 4-5 hours and can stir it regularly as it freezes. Also make sure you have adequate space available in your freezer before you begin.
Here is the recipe. Adjust the quantities based on how much lemon juice you have. We had between 4 and 5 cups of juice, so I made 4 times this recipe.
Ingredients:
-2 cups water
-1 cup sugar
-1 to ¼ cups fresh lemon juice from high quality lemons, preferably from a neighborhood tree or a farmer’s market (approximately 5 lemons, depending on size). Start with about 1 cup lemon juice and add more from there after you taste it (in Step 4 below).
-Lemon zest (optional) from the above lemons. I didn't use any since it all went in the limoncello, and I thought the granita came out great regardless.
Steps:
1) Zest lemons. If you are using lemons that still have the zest on them (i.e. if you are not using lemons left over from making limoncello like I was), then you can wash them very well, zest the lemons, and use the zest to add extra flavor to the granita. The zest can be added to the boiling water along with the sugar in Step 3. If you want, you could also try adding some zest at the very end along with the lemon juice if you want fine pieces of zest in the final product. I have yet to see this here in Italy but I think it might be good.
2) Squeeze your lemons into a measuring cup and see how much juice you have. Set the juice aside. Adjust the quantities of water and sugar accordingly by using the ratios above.
3) Boil the water in a pot and stir in the sugar (and zest if using it, as described in Step 1). Stir well and simmer the sugar solution for about 5 minutes. Strain it if you added zest. Remove from heat and let cool to room temperature.
4) Stir the 1 cup lemon juice into the pot. Taste it to make sure you like the sugar/acid balance and add some of the remaining ¼ cup of juice if you would like for it to be more sour.
5) Put the mixture in the freezer. You can either leave the mixture in the same pot if it is not too deep and will fit in your freezer. Otherwise, transfer it to a shallower metal pan, such as a loaf pan (or 2 if you made a bigger quantity). I would suggest covering it with saran wrap or a lid to keep the flavor pure.
6) Stir periodically until frozen. Some recipes tell you to stir the mixture every half hour from when you start to freeze it. I found that mine wasn’t starting to freeze for a few hours, so it didn’t seem necessary to stir it right away, though I still did. The idea is that you want to break up the ice clumps around the edges of the pan before they turn too solid. You want to keep the texture uniform. I am not sure if it is just our freezer, but even after 2-3 hours, I found that there weren’t really any clumps to break, and at that point it was after midnight and I fell asleep. I woke up the next morning and found that the granita was frozen but I could still break it into an even texture with a fork. So in my case it was forgiving. To be safe, however, I would make it earlier in the day and try to mix/chisel it periodically until it is frozen. The goal is to have a uniform texture that has little tiny sheets/flakes of ice.
7) Transfer granita to an airtight container and store in the freezer. Take it out of the freezer 10 minutes or so before you want to serve it and chisel away at it to break it up again, if necessary. In the picture below, you can see that in the container on the right, I recently chiseled the granita before serving it, where as the container on the left hasn't been re-chiseled since I originally made it, so it would need to be chopped up before serving. Luckily it's not very hard to do.
Serve in small glasses with spoons. You can garnish it with a fresh lemon slice or a sprig of mint. The granita is perfect to eat in the afternoon on a hot day. It also makes a nice palate cleanser between courses for a fancy dinner– though only serve a tiny amount in this case, like a few spoonfuls in a tiny glass.
I hope you like it as much as I do! Let us know if you make it. And especially if anyone tries the recipe with Meyer lemons, let me know, as my friend Lisa and I are curious about how it will come out. I bet it will be great, so if you have Meyer lemons, I would try it. Other popular flavors of granita here in Italy are watermelon, mint, coffee, and almond. I want to try making coffee next.
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