Recipe: Phoenicia Diner Aquas Frescas (using fruit juice, watermelon, pineapple or cucumber-mint)

AGUAS FRESCAS
"Aguas frescas, simply a combination of fresh fruit juice and a bit of water, are one of the many ingenious culinary inventions we can thank Mexico for. At the Diner, we make several versions in summer, when refreshing beverages are in high demand, using seltzer water for a little extra pizzazz."


"Use the best-quality fruit you can find. With a fresh, perfectly ripe watermelon, pineapple, or cucumber, you won't need much, if any, sweetener. The proportions here are a starting point-taste your fruit juice before fiddling with it, and add more simple syrup and fresh lemon juice as you like to achieve a refreshingly tart, but still sweet, balance."

FOR EACH SERVING:
3/4 cup fresh fruit juice
1 1/2 teaspoons fresh lemon juice
1 1/2 teaspoons simple syrup (see Note)
2 tablespoons seltzer water

For the fresh fruit juice:
To juice your fruit, use a home juicer on the lowest setting, or puree the fruit in a blender and strain it through a fine-mesh sieve.

WATERMELON:
The watermelons you find at a farmers market in high season tend to be smaller, fully ripe, and far sweeter than those at other times. When watermelons are at their peak, they don't need any extra sweetening, so we omit the simple syrup altogether. If you're buying watermelons in a supermarket, assume they were picked a little shy of ripe and will be less juicy than a vine-ripened melon. You'll need 3 to 4 cups of cubed commercial watermelon for 1 serving (6 ounces) of juice, a little less with a farmers market melon.

PINEAPPLE:
1 ripe whole pineapple will yield about 1 1/2 cups, or 12 ounces, of juice, which is enough for 2 servings.

CUCUMBER-MINT:
1 large seedless (English hothouse) cucumber, juiced together with 2 fresh mint leaves, yields 12 ounces, or 1 1/2 cups, of juice. Reserve a sprig of fresh mint leaves for each serving.

To prepare the beverage:
Fill a 16-ounce glass three-fourths full with ice cubes. Stir in the fruit juice, then taste for sweetness and tartness, adding lemon juice and simple syrup to your liking. Top with seltzer, give a stir, and enjoy.

NOTE: Simple syrup is merely a 1:1 ratio of sugar to water that has been heated and stirred just until the sugar dissolves, then removed from the heat and cooled. One cup of sugar and 1 cup of water yields about 1 1/2 cups simple syrup.

Used by permission to Recipelink.com from Clarkson Potter
Source: The Phoenicia Diner Cookbook: Dishes and Dispatches from the Catskill Mountains by Mike Cioffi, Chris Bradley, and Sara B. Franklin; photographs by Johnny Autry.