The simplicity and pure taste of santol juice in an earlier post 
had me thinking about the basic flavors used in local juices. My current cold/cough also means I am craving anything with a high Vitamin C content. Because the markets were flooded with really nice small dayap last weekend, I overbought as usual. I made a pitcher of dayap juice using about 1.5 kilos and it yielded about 6-8 glasses. These fruit had superb flavor. It is best described as bracing, clean and clear citrus essence at its best. The fruit weren’t as juicy as lemons or larger limes but the flavor was impressive. Squeezing the juice out of them was a little bit of a workout.
At PHP25 a kilo, this was not a cheap pitcher of juice. 
To make, juice about 1-2 kilos of dayap, add water and some honey or sugar syrup to taste. Add mint leaves if you want to get fancy. Serve over lots of ice. This would better approximate a canned soda if you added Sprite or 7Up instead of water. Add lots of sliced dayap to the pitcher for visual appeal and to identify the juice if you have several pitchers out at once. If you do not wish to dilute the dayap flavor, make some dayap ice cubes a day ahead and just store in your freezer. Use these instead of plain ice and the juice will be incredibly dayap instense…
I also wanted to try and see what a homemade dalandan soda 
would taste like so I juiced up two sweet dalandans, added some club soda and some sugar and stuck it in a blender with ice for a few seconds. It was delicious as well… so much better than the canned soda as the flavor of the dalandan was really noticeable. Dalandan were much easier to juice. The ingredients for both of these juices are so readily available now that they are in season and yet it is increasingly rare that anyone makes these juices from scratch…such a shame really. It takes so little effort and if you pop the pitcher in the fridge it can serve many folks over the course of a day.
11 Responses
mmmmm. . .. so refreshing, i always love this kind of citrus juices. . . have you tried the lemongrass ginger iced tea?? just boil the lemongrass (crushed) with a bit of crushed ginger (just put a small amount ’cause ginger is strong)in water. . . when flavors are infused, let cool and add honey or syrup or sugar plus ice ofcourse. . . you can also do a version without the ginger . . . both are really good. . .
Yes! More dayap! Love both dayap and dalandan juice…sooo refreshing and clean tasting. BTW, love the pitcher! Please say you got it here…
Thirst-quenching – and with a superb taste, definitely! You can use the lime zest for leche flan too, and the rind for ginisang bagoong.
Get well soon, Marketman! Boiled fresh oregano leaf (mint) brew is a traditional and very effective remedy. You’ll be rid of your cough and colds the day after.
Wilson, the lemongrass ginger tea might taste REALLY good with the young ginger I wrote about a few days ago, it has a smoother sweeter taste but still strong ginger flavor… Joey, sorry, got the pitcher on a trip to the U.S. It was from Crate & Barrel, quite reasonable (made in Poland) and if you have relations there they can probably get you one. Karen, thanks for the boiled oregano suggestion. Can I use the small oregano or does this have to be the large leaf oregano?
For the ginger tea, you may use moscovado sugar instead of white sugar or honey. Add some kalamansi juice and honey for the oregano. Its a proven effective for cough and colds. Get well soon, Marketman!
marketman, this sounds great! i have to agree that there is a severe underrepresentation of fruit juices in restaurants today. it’s such a shame that for a country with an abundance of reasonably-priced fresh fruits, philippine restaurants tend to serve only canned and prepackaged juice.
sexy pitcher
Yum! Dayap juice! It’s the best thing to look forward to whenever the tree in our backyard bears fruit. It’s so much nicer than calamansi juice.
Yes MM, you can use the small-leaf oregano as long as they’re not the ones you use for asado, hehehe! Some don’t even boil it, just chop and eat.
Hey Wilson, I like the idea of your lemongrass and ginger iced tea. MM, have you tried putting some ginger in watermelon shake? Just a hint of it and it gives the shake a tang. Really good. Learned it from my daughter.
Thanks Karen, will try that remedy. Woody, ginger and watermelon sounds really interesting. Nice mix of sugar and spice!