Lemon-Thyme Granita With Blackberry Balsamic Syrup

  1. Get yourself a small saucepan and pour your water and sugar into it.
  2. Turn the burner to medium, and stir until the sugar is fully dissolved.
  3. Bring the liquid to a boil, then add the thyme, bring it back down to a simmer, and put a lid on it. That lid's important, by the way. I've seen plenty of recipes forget the lid part, which means they're also forgetting that all that steam that's rising out of the pot is carrying your hard-earned flavor along with it. Shut it tight!
  4. Take your pot off the heat, and let it cool to room temperature.
  5. Once the liquid's cooled off, pour it through a strainer to get any of those thyme leaves out of there. We're making a granita, not a salad.
  6. Pour your lemon juice in, stir, and pour the whole thing into a large, wide dish. You want something close to 9-x-13-inches on this, otherwise you're gonna need an ice pick to get through it once it freezes.
  7. Check the mixture every 45 minutes until it starts to freeze. Once that happens, start scraping it up with a fork every 45 minutes. You want the consistency to be the same as shaved ice, so keep at it with the fork until it looks like that.
  8. Next, the syrup. Making jam or any jam-related things pretty much just involves dumping fruit and sugar into a pot and putting fire underneath it until it becomes jam. Luckily, syrup works in the exact same way.
  9. All you need to do is dump all the syrup ingredients in a small pot, turn it to medium-high, and stir. That's it. You want the syrup to be just above a simmer, so adjust accordingly.
  10. While you're stirring, make sure you crush the berries against the side of the pan occasionally. This'll make the whole thing go quicker. Not that it really matters since the granita has to freeze for a lot of hours, but hey, it'll let you get back to whatever it was you were doing that much quicker. Like watching "Friends" on DVD or something.
  11. Once it starts to look noticeably thicker, get some on the back of a spoon and run a finger across it. If it leaves a trail, you're good to go. If not, keep it cooking for a little longer.
  12. Take the syrup off heat, and pour it through a strainer. Make sure you press the berries into the strainer with the back of a spoon; that'll ensure that you get every last bit of that tasty juice in the syrup.
  13. All that's left is to put some granita in a bowl and pour some syrup over the top. Oh, and stick a thyme sprig on top too.

water, sugar, fresh thyme, lemon juice, syrup, blackberries, balsamic vinegar, sugar

Taken from food52.com/recipes/36838-lemon-thyme-granita-with-blackberry-balsamic-syrup (may not work)

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