Lemon Verbena Liqueur Recipes

LIMONCELLO

Steps:

• Zest the lemons, and place zest into a large glass bottle or jar. Pour in vodka. Cover loosely and let infuse for one week at room temperature.
• After one week, combine sugar and water in a medium saucepan. Bring to a boil. Do not stir. Boil for 15 minutes. Allow syrup to cool to room temperature.
• Stir vodka mixture into syrup. Strain into glass bottles, and seal each bottle with a cork. Let mixture age for 2 weeks at room temperature.
• Place bottled liqueur into the freezer. When icy cold, serve in chilled vodka glasses or shot glasses.

LEMON VERBENA SIMPLE SYRUP

Steps:

• Combine water, sugar, and lemon verbena leaves in a small saucepan. Bring to a boil, stirring until sugar dissolves. Simmer for 1 minute. Remove from heat and let syrup steep, about 30 minutes.
• Pour syrup into a sterilized glass jar through a mesh strainer to remove lemon verbena leaves; let cool.

LEMON VERBENA LIQUEUR

Steps:

• Lightly bruise the lemon verbena leaves.
• Place the lightly bruised lemon verbena leaves, lemon zest and the alcohol in a large jar with a tight fitting lid.
• Leave for at least 2 weeks in a cool, dark place before straining out the solids.

LEMON VERBENA GRANITA

Steps:

• Place a small metal tray into the freezer to chill. Put the lemon verbena, lemon zest, and sugar into the boiling water and allow to infuse for 10 minutes. Add your ice cubes to bring the temperature down and then sieve the liquid into the cold metal tray (keep the lemon zest and verbena for later) and place in the freezer for about 2 hours. Mash with a fork, scratching up the ice, then freeze for a further 2 hours.
• To prepare the apple compote, put 2 tablespoons of sugar into a small pan and heat on a medium heat until it is syrupy and light caramel color. Finely chop the reserved lemon zest and lemon verbena and add to the caramel with the apple and lemon juice. Mix and cook for a couple of minutes.
• To serve, spoon a little compote into 4 small shot glasses, then a spoonful of creme fraiche, and finally top with the granita and a small sprig of lemon verbena.

LEMON LIQUEUR

Steps:

• Peel and juice lemons.
• Put juice and peel into a CLEAN gallon jar along with the two liquors.
• Let stand a month.
• Combine sugar and water; heat until just boiling and sugar is completely dissolved.
• Cool completely.
• Strain the liquor off the peels and combine with the cooled syrup.
• Allow to stand at least another two months.
• It will form a cloudy layer at the top; this can be removed and saved for kitchen use, or shaken to resuspend before serving. It will not completely disappear without mechanical filtration, and perhaps not even after several filterings (even coffee filters will not catch it all).

LEMON VERBENA BREAD

Steps:

• For the bread cream butter with verbena leaves in a mixer or food processor.
• Add sugar,eggs and milk and beat well.
• Add remaining ingredients and pulse a few times until blended.
• Grease loaf pans (1 large,2 small or 4 mini) and pour in batter.
• Bake at 350º for 30-45 minutes, depending on pan size, or until toothpick inserted in center of bread comes out clean.
• Leave loaf in pan and pour glaze over loaf while still hot.
• Let sit several hours.
• Remove loaf from pan.
• Wrap in foil to ripen overnight if you like, or serve when cool.
• You can also freeze this bread for later use.
• GLAZE: Mix together 1/2 cup sugar and 2 tbsp fresh lemon verbena leaves,finely chopped, with the juice of one lemon.