Paula
Beach Fanatic
HI DD:
As I try to catch up with SoWal.com the limoncello thread caught my eye. As for busti of vanilla, those are little packages of dried vanilla you can get in Italy. Since it would cost over $1000 to make that trip to Italy and back, you can just use a little regular vanilla extract (I wouldn't use more than a tsp in the recipe I gave - or add the vanilla to your own taste). Here's the original recipe I posted from my cousin Lorena in Italy (look past this recipe for a recipe she gave me this summer for a coffee liquour (sp?). I haven't tried making it but she said it's wonderful.
LIMONCELLO
8 lemons washed and dried
1 litre alcohol pure for cooking
2 litre plus 250 fresh milk (10.57 cups)
4 busti vanilla
1/2 small glass cognac (about 1.5 inches cognac)
1 kilo 300 grams sugar (1 kilo = 2.2 pounds)
1. cut lemon rind only, yellow part
2. put in alcohol for 2 days
3. 3rd day boil milk with sugar and vanilla
4. cool milk mixture and add alcohol and cognac
5. mix and drink
This is a very nice variation on the standard Limoncello from Sorrento, which I enjoyed at a dinner in the hinterland of Verona. You'll need:
• 4 organically grown lemons
• a quart of grain alcohol
• a quart of milk
• a pound of sugar
• a pint of water:
Using a paring knife, trim the zest from the lemons, leaving the white part behind, and steep the zest in the alcohol for several days, shaking the jar daily. Combine the water, milk, and sugar and bring it to a boil 4-5 times, removing it from the burner each time it boils up. This serves to keep it from curdling subsequently.
Once the milk has boiled up for the last time, remove it from the fire and let it cool a bit. Stir in the alcohol, at which point the mixture should become thick and creamy. Let the mixture cool a little more and bottle it, pouring it through a fine wire mesh strainer into a funnel to filter out lemon zest and any large curds that might have formed. Let it sit for 3-4 days, and it's ready to serve. This makes a lot so I keep it in the freezer and serve it extra cold (sometimes it freezes in the freezer so you have to defrost it; sometimes it doesn't freeze - depends on the proportion of alcohol to milk I think).
Lorena’s Crema di caf?
3 liters coffee
2 liter alcohol
2-3 kilo very fine sugar
1. Make coffee
2. Add sugar and mix very well so sugar doesn’t crystallize (Lorena makes very sugar fine with mixer)
3. When cold, add alcohol and mix.
4. Drink after one week
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