I made this lemon granita a couple of weeks ago. Doesn’t it look lovely?
Unfortunately, it doesn’t taste as good as it looks. It has a bitter aftertaste. My diagnosis? Too much pith on the peel. (Say that fast, five times.) One of these days, I’ll try again, and when I have it perfected I’ll share the recipe.
From time to time I’ll be sharing some of my cooking misadventures, just to give hope to those of you building your confidence in the kitchen. Sometimes people learning to cook feel like giving up when something doesn’t turn out. Well, kitchen flops happen to us all, even someone who’s been cooking as long as I have. The key is to analyze what went wrong, get some advice if you need it and try again. (Looking for the humour in the situation helps too. When I figure out what was funny about my bitter granita I’ll let you know!)
And, if you end up like I did, without the dessert you planned, you can always go out for ice cream.
Keep your spirits up!
You are so right! I’ve tossed many a pot of food but I kept on cooking. The jury’s still out on whether that was the right decision. 🙂
Based on what I see on your blog, I think it was a very good idea indeed to keep cooking (and to share your successes with the rest of us)!
That does look beautiful! I’ve never had granita before! Is it ice??
Yes, it’s a flavoured ice. A nice dessert, a palate cleanser between courses, and I suppose it could be part of an appetizer course too. Very easy to make. I was just too heavy-handed when I peeled the lemon (the zest steeps in a sugar syrup), and the pith made it taste bitter.
We all learn from our mistakes. That is part of the adventure when cooking.
Isn’t it though!
[…] confection it turned out to be the other 93 times I’d made it. More recently, there was the Meyer Lemon Granita that turned out bitter. Pretty to look at, not pretty to […]