Generic Cordial

Another cordial this weekend, this time using bulk white nectarines from the grocer. They were too hard to be eaten, but made good cordial. I used a nectarine instantiation of my father’s generic cordial recipe. He created this recipe based on Matt’s recipe for orange cordial, but tweaked it after various trials, and made it parametric on fruit.
The recipe e.g. for strawberries or whole fruit, creates a very thick syrupy cordial – thick enough to use as a topping for icrecream. Add water if you want a thinner cordial more similar to a shop-bought one.
Somewhat surprisingly to me, microwaving dry white sugar (below) does work. But, be careful. Your microwave may have a different power, the bowl will become super-hot, and you need to periodically stir the sugar, or it will melt around the edges. Also, when you add super-hot sugar to the fruit puree, be ready for the puree to instantly boil. Personally, I don’t microwave the sugar – I just chuck it into the puree cold, then boil the lot of it…
Generic Cordial Recipe

• To make 7x litres of cordial, use:
  5x litres of fruit puree (see below)
  5x kg of white sugar
  63x grams of citric acid (i.e. 9 grams/litre)

• Heat puree to boil and remove from heat
  Heat sugar in microwave (5 mins/kg)
• Combine all ingredients, stir until dissolved
• Bring to boil, boil until satisfied with sterilization (5 mins?)
• Cool until cold enough to pour into sterilized bottles

Fruit Purees
Ginger: use 100g ginger root per litre of finished cordial (i.e. per 5/7 lire of puree). Grate ginger root, boil with some water until soft (pressure-cook for 40 mins)?, puree in blender (two 30-sec bursts?), then make up planned quantity with water.
Strawberry: Use hulled strawberries and no added water. Don’t boil, mash before blending.
Passionfruit: Use pulp of 1 large passionfruit per 100ml of puree. Boil with some water (or pressure cook) for say 20 minutes to release pulp from seeds. Sieve to remove seeds, puree in blender, add water to achieve planned quantity.
Pineapple, mandarin, …: (boil, add water only as needed)
Cordials with Ginger
Make ginger cordial from ginger puree as above and blend with other cordial to taste (40% ginger cordial?)