Limonana - Ultra Fresh Minted Lemonade

There's more than a way to skin a cat and there's sure more than a way to squeeze a lemon and to make lemonade. In this video I'll show you two different ways to take the juice out of a lemon and proceed to make my favourite lemonade variation: limonana. It's made from freshly-squeezed lemon juice and spearmint leaves and is very popular Egypt, Palestine (region), Israel, Cyprus, Jordan, Lebanon, and Syria. If you want to make this an healthy drink just don't use sugar. For half a lemon you'll get less than one gram of sugar, only around 10 Kcal, around 1/4 of the recommended daily intake, and approximately 1% of folate and potassium intake. You can substitute the sugar with lemon zest. Crush the spearmint with it. That way you'll be adding some more flavonoids to the lemon juice nutrients and boosting the antioxidant power of your drink.

This is a great drink to help in weight loss programs or detox diets. Just remember not to add sugar if your purpose is health related.

Ingredients

1/2 lemon
150 ml water
2 spearmint leafs
2 teaspoons sugar (for the sweet version)
zest of 1/2 lemon (for the healthy version)

Preparation

1. Squeeze the lemon juice into the glass with water (check the video below to know two ways of doing that).
2. Sweet version: put the sugar into a mortar, add the spearmint and crush and roll until the leafs are blended with the sugar and are no longer visible. You're left with a green sugar.
3. Healthy version: put the lemon jest into a mortar, add the spearmint and crush and roll until the leafs are blended with the jest.
4. For extra freshness add two ice cubes.