Green Juice

19th January 2013

A day in today,  utilising the Crab Apples found in the hedgerow yesterday, so I’m going to have a go at making something called Verjuice.

Traditionally verjuice was the pressed juice of unripe grapes and the resultant green juice (verte jus) was favoured in france as a superior acidifying agent in cooking being less harsh than either lemon juice or wine and cider vinegars. Its use can be dated back to medieval times and it only fell from popularity in the early 19th century. Although it was mainly made from grapes in their absense a range of other fruit can be used including unripe plums, gooseberries and crab apples.

Today verjuice is making a comeback, and is used by many of the top chefs. It can be incorporated into salad dressings, used for deglazing pans, making sauces, fruit compotes, fish stock and in fact anywhere that vinegar or lemon juice may be used.

There are several different recipes around, some partially ferment the apples first or sometimes a lacto-fermentation is encouraged but in this recipe it is just the unadulterated juice. It’s very simple to make and the 750g of crab apples that I collected yeided about 400ml of the finished verjuice.

• Wash the apples

• Blanch the apples in boiling water for a few minutes (this will soften the apples and make pressing them easier)
• Remove the stalks
• Put into a food processor and blitz into a fine pulp

• Put into a jelly bag or wrap in a muslin cloth

• Either press in an apple press, squeeze in a potato ricer or place in a sieve and weigh down with something heavy (cans of food etc.)

• Pass the juice through fine muslin cloth
• Bottle

It’s worth making sure everything is spotlessly clean and sterilising the bottle, you can even add a splash of vodka to inhibit bacterial growth.

Kev Palmer