Sous Vide Limoncello
Years ago, I made a big plan of giving everyone a bottle of limoncello for the Holiday Season. That sweet, lemony Italian liqueur was something I found delectable. I originally made this decision to gift such a beverage in early December and only started creating the recipe around mid-month.
Okay, I might be exaggerating a little, but 10-14 days of preparation was not going to cut it - until I discovered that I could use my Anova Precision Cooker for limoncello and receive results in two hours.
(Don’t tell my friends, but they're all still getting limoncello in their stockings this year).
Active Time: About 5 to 10 minutes (depends on how much peeling you have to do!)
Cook time: 2 to 3 hours
Temperature: 135ºF/57ºC
Makes about 1L Limoncello
Ingredients:
- 10-15 lemons, washed well
- 750 ml vodka (unflavored!)
- 1 cup sugar
- 1 cup water
Directions:
Heat the Anova Precision Cooker to 135ºF/57ºC.
Use a peeler or a grater, such as the
Microplane®, to remove lemon peel, being careful not to get any of the white pith from the peel.
Pour 750ml vodka into a zip-close plastic bag. Add the lemon peel to the vodka and seal the bag, creating a vacuum using the water displacement method.
Place bag into cooking water and cook 2 to 3 hours.
While vodka infuses with lemon peel, place sugar and water into saucepan. Bring to boil, remove from heat and stir until sugar is dissolved. Let cool.
When cooking time is up, remove bag from cooker and strain through mesh sieve to remove lemon peel. Stir simple syrup (sugar/water mixture) into vodka. Pour into clean, sterile, decorative bottles to give as gifts or return to original vodka bottle, cap off and keep cold in freezer.
Note: I use a lot of lemons in cooking, and I am in the habit of peeling them before I squeeze them for juice—I don’t like wasting anything I might find a use for someday! I store lemon peel in a bag in the freezer, so when I decided to make limoncello, I had all the peel I needed.
