Wednesday, February 22, 2006

K.I.S.S.: SIMPLISTIC SYRUP

I’ve had occasion lately to look back at some of what I’ve posted here over the years, and rediscovered a recipe or two that I’d forgotten I’d invented.  It’s fun to make food in the kitchen when the end result is unexpectedly tasty, and it’s even better when you realize so long after the fact that you can still make fire mangoes or pan-fried chili-fennel salmon chunks that will turn a frustrating, soul-sucking day into a sleepy, blissful, grease-smeared pleasure. 

But I’ve also been reminded as I read through some of those dusty old recipes of two additional points: that I have not been coming up with much lately in terms of instructions for comestibles, and that some of the people who wander through these hallowed cyberhalls have disclaimed the ability to boil water.  “I can’t boil water,” they gleefully self-denigrate in the comments; “how the hell do you expect me to butterfly a porkloin?”

Well, first of all, “butterfly a porkloin” doesn’t mean what you think it does, so get your mind out of the insinkerator.  And second of all, like hell you can’t boil water.  If you wanted to boil water, you’d be able to do it.  It’s really easy.  Put the water in a pot, put the pot on the stove, turn the heat up nice and high, and don�t wander too far away.  Set a timer if you think you’ll lose focus, or stand there and watch it, or I don’t care what you do.  It’s true, I have boiled water for so long that it all evaporated and I ruined a nice old enamel soup tureen, but in my defense I was distracted by someone at the front door who wanted to talk about a very complicated thing I was involved in at the time and I kept thinking, I ought to go up and turn off that flame under the asparagus, it’s going to be inedible, and anyway I should put on a shirt, and I kind of have to go to the bathroom, and still I stood there gabbing like an idiot until I heard my smoke alarm going off and had to run upstairs at top speed before I set fire to my kitchen and my bladder exploded, though these two consequences could have been self-cancelling.  So I know it’s possible to screw this up.  But you have to work at it.  It�s easier to boil water than to ruin boiled water. 

So here’s a recipe for those of you who want to make something with your stove other than shrinkydinks.  And here’s the setup:

You’ve just poured yourself a cold beverage, and you taste it with great anticipation, but ultimate disappointment.  It needs to be sweeter.  What beverage is this?  Iced coffee (your morning coffee that you never finished but stuck back in the fridge)?  Iced tea?  Some kind of lameonade that you thought was a clever way to get rid of extra lemons, but it turns out to be so sour that your teeth start beating up your tongue?  That’s the one I tried.  I got a bunch of wonderful meyer lemons from my dad and squoze them down for lemonade, but even though these are relatively sweet lemons, the damn stuff was still way too sour for ordinary drinking purposes. 

So anyway, you’ve got this cold liquid and you want to make it sweet.  You dump sugar in it.  Is it any sweeter?  LIKE HELL IT IS.  Sugar dissolves in warm or hot water, but in cold water it just hangs out at the bottom of the glass like so much wasted potential, not unlike my own youth.  You stir it up and the little crystals cheerfully spin in an impotent flurry, melting not one whit.  You wind up with a big glass of unsavory liquid that you drink anyway, hoping that it’ll get better as you go, and then the last mouthful is basically a mass of disintegrated rock candy.  Blerg. 

The thing here is, you need pre-melted sugar if you want to sweeten up a cold beverage.  And that’s where boiling water comes in.  Here’s a recipe that’s totally useful, totally fun, and so goddamn simple that they actually call it:

SIMPLE SYRUP

Get a pot and put in it equal measures of water and granulated sugar.  Not powdered sugar.  Not brown sugar.  Just regular crystals of granulated sugar like they have in the little packets.  But take it out of the packets first, if you happened to have stolen it from a diner, you classless wanker.  I just made a batch of this stuff using a half-cup of water and a half-cup of sugar, but you can use any amount you like.  Smaller amounts cook faster, though.  If that’s your thing, I mean. 

Then, stir it a little.  You’ll need a spoon that’s long enough so you don’t singe yourself when the stuff starts heating up.  If you can’t manage this hurdle, you really shouldn�t have access to a kitchen, much less a stove.  But anyway.  When you stir the sugar and the water, you’ll see that the sugar just kind of spins around and laughs at you.  This is when you turn the tables.  Get the heat going nice and high on the burner and set the pot on top of it.  Yes, that’s right, there you go. 

Hang out next to this pot as it heats up.  Stir it every so often as it comes to a boil.  As the water starts to bubble, the sugar suddenly all dissolves and the water becomes clear again.  Turn off the heat and let the stuff cool down a little, and then pour it in a jar and stick it in the fridge. 

That’s the whole recipe.  Now you’ve got simple syrup and you can use it for sweetening pretty much anything.  And with that kind of power, comes great responsibility.  Life can be a bitter thing for some people.  It need not be so any longer for you.  So go in peace, my friend, and spread your sugary liquid far and wide.  The world will be a better place for it.  It’s just that simple.