Lynn Strong

Or at least it does if I have correctly flipped all the switches and clicked all the clickables!

Haroun’s book is really personal for me. I share disability spectrums with both Shai Madhur and Haroun, and I have a lot of friends who share intersectional communities, so the afterstuff is longer than it was for Chai and Cat-tales, but the story itself is also well over twice as long even before I added in 50-some pages of recipes.

I am also drowning in small business minutiae on very little sleep; please pardon typos. Yesterday (9/6 as I’m prewriting this), I tried to do the marketing grind and also port my whole mailing list to a new provider because the current one decided this was the perfect month to halve their free tier and start charging more than I earn in an average month from book sales. And my brain just would not cope. Neither would my body or my eyes. So instead of being on the laptop juggling spreadsheets and logins, I was flat on my back with my tablet two inches from my nose, gleefully chatting zucchini/courgettes with Lacrima Mundi, QuiteBrief, Matt Mason, and Steve Hugh Westenra.

QuiteBrief and I both live in what I colloquially refer to as zucchini country, meaning the part of the world where at certain times of year you know you must lock your car, your porch, and/or your garage to prevent drive-by depositing of boxes of tomatoes and various gourds of a size that double as blunt instruments which were discovered under overgrown leaves by avid gardeners.

I have had to deal with 20 pounds of assorted squash in an entirely too short time window, and so zucchini bread, many soups, many stir fries, and mad fusion crossover food like potato-zucchini fritters and Carmarthenshire Welsh-meets-Korean variants on stwmp have made it into my experimental recipe collection. Matt has some delicious looking Greek variations in that thread and QuiteBrief’s chocolate zucchini bread also sounds intriguing.

We also bonded over a mutual appreciation of shiso, which features prominently in both Japanese and Korean food, and it makes a delightful substitute for mint with a delicate pink color (even when you use the green shiso variant) in sekanjabin. Unfortunately it doesn’t dry very well, but it’s essential in Japanese umeboshi pickles (at least in my opinion). Sekanjabin uses up a lot more of it than umeboshi do, though. I’ve also considered a shiso pesto sort of notion to blend shiso leaves with an olive and sesame oil blend and freeze in ice cubes for later use. (At some point I’m going to blog the medieval form of za’atar from Haroun’s bonus recipe collection, which is basically pesto made with thyme and walnuts instead of basil and pine nuts, and this is a note to future me to come back and link this in.)

I confess the chat did not make my small business obligations any shorter but it was a joy and a relief to just talk about food nerdery because I wanted to, not to grind more social media marketing performances because I was obligated to.

And since I have 50 pages of not-yet-blogged recipes from Haroun to choose from, here’s one of them! One of these days I really will get around to the mega-post about sharbat, sekanjabin, shrub, switchel, and various international variants on “sugar + acid + flavoring = beverage,” but in the meantime, here is a sweeter version of Najra’s Crimson Witches’ Brew.

Grandmother’s Karkadeh for Good Boys, Good Girls, and Good Folks

Technically karkadeh could be made as a sharbat, like the shahzada’s fragrant almond, khus, and sandalwood sharbat from Chai and Cat-tales. But Najra’s Crimson Witch’s Brew is at the other end of the scale from a sharbat even though it’s based on karkadeh. A sharbat is a sweet syrup with a particular flavor used to make drinks and sometimes dressings, karkadeh is a sweet hibiscus drink, and Najra’s Crimson Witch’s Brew is the sourest combination of hibiscus and other tart things that you’re willing to put in your mouth.

There are folk tales that the pharaohs also drank karkadeh, but unfortunately I haven’t found any references more concrete than “everyone says”-type marketing materials. I wouldn’t be surprised if hibiscus drinks have been made and consumed for that long – I just can’t document it.

Here are three variations based on whether you’d like to store sharbat concentrate and dilute to taste when you want to drink it or whether you’d like to make a cup at a time.

A pitcher for a party like Haroun’s:

• 1/4 to 1/2 cup dried hibiscus flowers
• Up to the same amount of sugar (optional but customary)
• 2 quarts of water
• Optional: A lime or some lime juice
• Optional: Some rose water and/or mint sprigs

Simmer the hibiscus flowers and sugar together until the liquid is bright red and the sugar (if you’re using it) is dissolved, usually 5-10 minutes. (If some people in the party want sugar-free, you could also make the tisane without sugar and serve a container of simple syrup on the side for folks to use or not use as desired.)

When the color and flavor are as strong as you like, strain the petals out of the karkadeh with a sieve or cheesecloth.

Chill until you’re ready to serve.

Taste when cool, because temperature makes a taste difference. You might want to adjust the tartness with lime and/or simple syrup at this point. Add any rosewater after chilling, so that the flavors won’t evaporate with the steam.

Decorate the pitcher or glasses with mint sprigs if desired.

(If you plan to serve it with ice, use less water in the simmering to start with, so it will be less diluted by the ice melting.)

For sharbat concentrate to save and dilute later:

Low spoons? Monin sells a tasty hibiscus syrup that’s likely intended for tea shops, but I drink enough chai to be my own tea shop. So if you need any encouragement to become your own tea shop too, go forth and brew with all the tasty benedictions!

Making your own: Instead of making the sugar 1:1 with the hibiscus, you’ll want sugar 1:1 with water (or 2:1 with vinegar for some sharbats), so that you have a condensed syrup that you dilute to taste later. Unfortunately, I don’t know of a no-sugar alternative for this type of syrup.

• Up to 3 cups sugar, separated
• 2 cups water
• 1/4 to 1/2 cup dried hibiscus petals (or, if you have them fresh, as many as you can wilt into the pot)
• (Optional) Juice and zest from 1-2 limes, about 2-4 Tbsp
• (After cooling) Rosewater and/or mint sprigs if desired

First, simmer the hibiscus petals and any optional lime zest for 10 minutes or so, in order for the flavor and color to be extracted. Use a sieve to strain out the petals and give them a good squeeze with the back of a spoon to extract all the liquid into the simmering pot. (I recommend removing the petals before adding the sugar because of how thick the syrup will be; you’ll lose a lot of syrup if you let it cling to the petals.)

After the petals have been removed, while the hot hibiscus tisane is still simmering, add 2 cups of sugar gradually, stirring so that the sugar dissolves. This will be a thick syrup when cooled.

Once 2 cups of sugar are dissolved in and the liquid is clear, adjust the sweetness/tartness with the lime juice.

You can taste test with a tablespoon of sharbat in about a quarter cup of cold water to assess whether you’d like it stronger or sharper. Don’t entirely cool the syrup until you’re sure you have the balance you want, though; you might overcorrect the tartness with the limes and need to dissolve some of that third cup of sugar in.

When you’re satisfied with the sweet-tart balance, cool the syrup. If you like rosewater, add a splash of it now. Store in the refrigerator until ready to use.

When serving, plan for one part syrup to three or four parts of cool water, more or less. (Again, taste testing is your friend! I use a couple tablespoons of syrup per cup of water. If you use carbonated water, you have your own karkadeh soda.)

For a sugar-free alternative, individual servings:

• 1-2 tsp dried hibiscus petals
• 1-2 cups hot water
• (Optional) Sugar-free sweetener of your choice
• (Optional) A slice of lime or sprig of mint

I do like hibiscus tisane without any sweetener in it as long as I don’t stack too many other bitter-makers into it. Everyone’s tastes vary, of course! You can also make a sugar-free batch at the pitcher size and offer simple syrup on the side for those who partake.