How To Make Apple Juice the Easy Way
Apple pie, apple crumbles - whether you're apple-picking or just stocking up in the grocery store, 'tis considerably the season. But what about apple cider juice? Ubiquitous as it's, it's never been Food52 includes a trick from chefs' Stuart Brioza and Nicole Krasinski's new cookbook, State Bird Provisions, for producing apple juice by hand--and feeling a bit like the Hulk from the a staple that is home-kitchen. Unlike gentle citrus fruits which may be squeezed by hand or with a simple tool, apples call for an appropriate cold-press juicer... or do they?
process.
If you freeze apples for eight hours, then defrost them fully -- for about three hours--they'll be soft enough to juice by hand.
This is that water expands as it freezes. In other plant matter and fruits, the plant cell walls burst, making fruits that are defrosted pretty mushy. Usually, this is a challenge for creating, but it is a perfect shortcut if the goal is fruit.
It might not taste like the apple juice you get from the shop. Brioza and Krasinski compose, "The resulting liquid has an intense, concentrated flavor, the sweetness and tartness heightened." But that seems pretty darn great to me.
