Lemon and Lime Mintade

Last week was a Lot. I ventured into it buzzing with adorably ambitious New Year’s intentions to, like, get things done, and spent most of it glued to a screen, furious and frustrated. As I mentioned in this morning’s newsletter, I’ve often felt that January is a blur and this one is particularly so. Armed insurrections are not a subject I know how to discuss in any meaningful way in a recipe headnote. But if you’re feeling like you’re in a fog, do know that you’re not alone.

Because feeding times at my zoo must go on as scheduled or it gets particularly feral around here, I did make three new things last week, all from The Flavor Equation [Amazon, Bookshop], a fascinating new cookbook from Nik Sharma in which he uses his molecular biology background to apply what he knows about the science of taste to recipe development. He also has an excellent palate, demonstrated through years of blogging at A Brown Table. I made the book’s shaved brussels sprout salad with crispy shallots, the coconut chicken curry, and then, because it sounded so impossibly refreshing, this lemon and lime mintade. It was inspired by one Sharma had on a long intentional flight that, although 16 hours long, sounds positively dreamy right now, some 1600 weeks into this pandemic.

The approach here is very simple: Zest two lemons and limes. Sharma doesn’t like the microplane zester, preferring a cocktail zester; Deb has a cocktail zester but finds it annoying, is fine with the microplane zester, but really loves this type of serrated peeler (it excels at removing thin skins, like those of peaches and tomatoes, hardly a bad investment). In short: you have options. Then, make a simple syrup with sugar and water, add the zest and a good fistful of mint leaves and let it all chill together. Juice the lemons and limes and add the juice to the cooled syrup, strain it, and pour it halfway up a glass filled with ice, filling the rest with seltzer. Take a big sip that’s hopefully refreshing, clarifying, energizing, and several other -ings that my swamp brain could use a jolt of right now. I hope you find it equally magical.