This attractive dark maroon red drink or juice is prepared from sepals of sorrel flowers. In Andhra we have red stemmed and green stemmed sorrel plants (called Gongoora in Telugu) available. Leaves of red variety are more sour and tangy. We can prepare many dishes using the leaves, like famous gongoora pickle, and also in vegetarian and non vegetarian recipes . The sepals of both the plants ( Gongoora kayalu) are red and fleshy. We can prepare a very refreshing juice from these sepals along with some spices. When I was browsing through the details of sorrel and it’s different components I suddenly stopped at a blog “immaculate bites” of africanbites.com. It is mentioned that it is a famous and favorite drink of Jamaica and entire Caribbean area and some other places like Nigeria etc. It is their favorite drink prepared with dried ingredient available in their areas. They call it sorrel drink and serve it during Christmas days. Fortunately we can get fresh sepals of gongoora in some of our places in Andhra Pradesh. I made some changes in my preparation as per my convenience.

Ingredients:

Healthy dark red sepals – 200 Gms, plucked, washed and kept in collander till use,
Water – 6 to. 8 cups,
Sugar – 2 cups,
Cinnamon sticks – 1/2″ 4 pieces or 1/2 Tsp course cinnamon powder,
Juice from 2 medium limes,
Grated ginger – 1 Tablesp,

Method:

1).Boil water with sugar until it is completely dissolved.
2).Add sorrel sepals, cinnamon, ginger and continue to simmer under low heat for 30 minutes or till the sepals become pulpy.
3).Add lime juice, stir well and remove from fire. Keep it covered for an hr
4).When cool, keep it refrigerated for 3 to 4 hrs or overnight.
5).At the time of serving strain the juice with fine strainer and serve with ice cubes.
You can preserve this tangy and healthy juice for 3 to 4 days.

Tip:

A). You can substitute jaggery/ honey/ sugar free tablets for diabetics and dieters. Add sugar free tablets after preparing the juice. This juice is not only refreshing but healthy too because of medical benefits.
B).After straining the juice you can prepare jam with the remaining pulp. You can check my recipies with sorrel leaves and sepals in my blog.