All I need is fresh or frozen cranberries, water, sugar and a bit of starch. I was told that cranberries are for sell all year round, so wasn't supposed to be a problem and starch is just such a common product so there shouldn't be a problem either. How naive I was...
First of all, everyone I asked told me that cranberries are very easy to find and told me where to get them as well. The little problem was that there were no cranberries anywhere they told be they should be. After three days I finally found some. They were dried. Anyway, that will have to do. And you know what, the next day that I was making the drink, my landlady told me she saw very cheap fresh cranberries at the market... Yeah, could have told me about that before...
OK, the next on the list is starch. That should be easy to get, right? Just go to the supermarket. No, love, no, that ain't so easy. First of all, the guy at the supermarket got brought me to the house supply aisle for "arandano" (starch) and got angry at me when I told him it was supposed to be food. Then another man came to help me and it took me quite a while to explain him what I wanted after which he said they don't have starch in stock. So no luck in the supermarket. I later asked the my landlady where to get it and she told me to go to the market. That is not so easy to do, because the market is only open during my working hours. If I wanted to get starch there, I should have skipped my lunch to go there. Luckily, the secretary at the office offered to have a look in some tiny shop she passes on the way home. And so, that shop sells starch, but they don't have it packed in small quantities. And I only need 100g (3,5oz). They can sell minimum 250g (8,8oz), which is fine too. So the lovely secretary went again to that shop the next day during her lunch break to buy me some starch. The ridiculous part is that 250g of starch costs only 4 pesos (0,24Eur or 0,31USD). But it took me four days to get it.
Anyway, I finally have all the ingredients and I'm ready to make some cranberry drink.
If you're interested in how it tastes, here's how to make it:
Boil 4 cups of water with 200g (8oz) dried fruit (cranberries in this case) for 10min. In a cup of cold water stir 1 table spoon of potato starch (or 2tbs of corn starch). Add the starch "milk" to the boiling fruit drink. Be sure to pour it slowly while stirring. Keep stirring the boiling drink for a few more minutes until it thickens. As soon as it gets thicker, stop boiling (the longer it boils, the thinner it gets. So 3-5min after added starch is perfect timing). Serve hot or cold. If it's very thick, you may serve with whipped cream. Yummy!
-If you're using dried berries, you might want to take the berries out of the boiling water when they rehydrate and blend them. Then add to the water again.
-This drink can also be made with fresh of frozen fruit. In that case you'll need 1,5-2 cups of fruit for a litre (0,26 gallons) of drink.
In case you're wondering, the International Girl Team of the House loved it!
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