Summer delights : "Fruit of Gods" Juice

Think summer and the mind conjures up images of fruits and colours, mangoes in orange hues, watermelons and strawberries in deep reds, jackfruits in their greens and of course not far behind, palmyra (kati nongu) and jamuns in deep violets..

On a visit to Star Bazaar one lazy Sunday afternoon, I was strolling through the fruit section and was tempted into buying a packet of fresh Jamuns. Jamun (Java plums/Jambul/Jambun) fruits are a good source of iron. Story goes that Rama lived on the Jamun fruit for 14 years during his exile from Ayodhya and hence the fruit is called "Fruit of Gods" in Gujarat.

At first glance, I didn't pick up the fruit as I knew it would lie in the fridge for many days before we forced ourselves to finish it (past experience has taught me these things :D) but

Mug promptly dropped a packet into the trolley. As expected, the jamuns stayed in the refrigerator for 3-4 days, without the man even remembering we bought it. A gentle reminder given to eat the fruit received a creative negative response and I was left with two options : Give it away / Make something out of it. Now I wasn't too pleased with the first option, so decided to use the jamuns in a jam/sauce/juice.

I am not the always enthusiastic / energetic girl. I can be very very lazy. I had to find the easiest way of utilising the fruit. A search on the internet led me to an article in Starbroek news by Cynthia from tasteslikehome where she had posted the recipe for the Jamun juice. I zeroed in on this recipe as it was not only super simple but also a tad different as she had used spices to complement the Jamun flavour.

I had to wait another day before I could make the juice but the wait was worth it!

As I went Squish squish squish the next day to extract the pulp, I absolutely loved the violet hues of the fruit and couldn't resist taking a few pictures.

I was more than satisfied with the result, however, Mug decided that it was too "cinammony" . When you do try this recipe out, if you do not like a strong cinammon flavour, you can opt to reduce the size of the cinnamon stick or remove it immediately after the water is boiled.

Ingredients

2 cups jamun 

3- 3 1/2 cups Water

1 small piece (2-3 inch) cinnamon stick

2 cloves

1 elaichi

1/2 cup sugar

Method

Add water and spices in a saucepan and bring to a boil. Let boil for 2 minutes

Wash jamun, drain and add to a large bowl.

With clean hands or gloved hands, squish the jamun. Do not remove the seeds at this stage.

Pour boiled water and spices into the bowl with mashed jamun, stir, and cover and let steep overnight. Trust the water and spices to do their job :)

Strain juice after overnight steeping; using clean hands, squeeze more juice from pulp. If required add a little more water to squeeze out all the pulp.

Add sugar to this juice and mix. 

Pour juice into glass and enjoy or bottle and refrigerate.