Many recipes, like lemonade, call for cupful quantities of fresh lemon juice. Juicing a dozen or so lemons to get a single cup of fresh juice takes time, usually creates a mess, and — with lemons at 2 or 3 for a dollar — has some real cost.
Here’s a quick shortcut to create ¾ cup of lemon juice, quickly, easily and with just two lemons. To make more juice this way, do it in batches. The secret here is to use a blender on only one lemon at a time to extract the most flavor.
Brian’s Quick Lemon Juice
Yield: ¾ cup; yield will vary proportionally with lemon size
Ingredients:
2 lemons, 6 ounces each
¼ cup + ½ cup water
Preparation:
Wash both lemons. Cut the ends of one lemon, then quarter it. Slice each quarter into 3 pieces so that you have 12 small pieces of lemon. You need small lemon pieces here so the blender does not stall, and you end up with a long spoon poking at lemon pieces wedged against the blender’s blade.
Put the lemon pieces in a blender, add the first ¼ cup of water, and process for at least two minutes. Add the remaining ½ cup of water and process for another two minutes. The goal here is to extract as much juice, and leave as little pulp, as possible.
Strain the processed liquid into a container with a fine mesh sieve. You should press down on the sieve contents with back of a spoon to force through the maximum amount of juice.
Cut the second lemon in half, and squeeze its juice into the container. Refrigerate. The juice is best used fresh the same day but is still excellent for 2-3 days if kept cold.
Source: Brian O’Rourke