When life gives me lemons, I make Strawberry Lemonade…
…but in our local wet market, lemons are seldom available. Most often, life gives me a bag of Wild Mangosteen, locally known as Santol.
So instead of Lemonade, I make Santol-ade.♥
We used to have three big Santol trees in our house in Novaliches. During Santol season, we can just grab fresh santol from the branches of the tree and eat them right then and there.
Gosh, I miss those trees…and I just wish we still have them so ykaie could experience what I was able to experience when I was a child.
…and I wish this juice has sleeping powers. I had a hard time sleeping last night…
Santol has a rough orange peel and has a thick rind and seeds surrounded by sweet white pulp which looks like cotton. I usually eat it raw dipped in shrimp paste or salt, make it into juice or cook the rind into candied santol.
A cousin cooks it into a spicy stew with coconut milk. I’ve never tried it but I will one of these days…
- 4 large santol/wild mangosteen
- 8 cups of water
- 1 cup sugar
- lots of ice
- ¼ cup calamansi juice {optional}
- Dissolve sugar in 3 cups water.
- Peel santol/wild mangosteen and chop it up horizontally and vertically.
- Crumble it into pieces into the water with dissolved sugar.
- Do this one by one to prevent the rind from turning brown.
- You can also purée half the rind using a blender. It would be a lot more flavorful.
- Add the rest of the water and calamansi juice. Stir.
- Steep in the fridge for 4 hours, letting the flavor of the rind and the seeds into the water.
- Serve with lots of ice
