I have some Mint plants in my herb garden and they are growing well even though it’s winter now. I don’t use Mint for cooking very often but I wanted to use those fragrant leaves for something. So, I made this Green Mint Syrup today. The green colour comes from Mint leaves. No artificial ingredients are required. You only need Water, Sugar and plenty of Mint leaves.


Ingredients

1/2 cupful Mint Leaves *firmly packed, you can use more leaves, choose fragrant leaves
1/2 cup Water
1/2 cup Sugar
Cold Water to cool the blanched Mint leaves quickly

Method
  1. Wash Mint leaves very well. You would add a half of them to hot syrup and blanch the other half. *Note: You can use more Mint leaves if you have.
  2. Heat Water and Sugar in a saucepan over medium heat until Sugar dissolved completely. Remove from the heat, add a half of Mint leaves, cover with a lid, and set aside until cool.
  3. Place some water in a separate saucepan and bring to the boil. Add the other half of Mint leaves into the boiling water, quickly blanch for 10-15 seconds, then drain. Cool in cold water, icy cold water is ideal, as it will stop the leaves loosing the bright green colour. Squeeze to remove excess water and chop up into small pieces.
  4. Remove the leaves from the cooled syrup. Add the chopped up Mint leaves to the cooled syrup and process using a stick blender. You don’t need to process finely.
  5. *Note: You can chop up and process the leaves that were soaked in the hot syrup, but the green colour would be inferior.
  6. Strain the mixture through a tea strainer and remove the leaves. Please note I added extra fresh Mint leaves to the Syrup in the above photo for the presentation.
  7. This Green Mint Syrup can be used for a cocktail, mixed with soda water, OR add it to your favourite drink or dessert. I have found that it goes well with Gin.