Strawberry & Cardamom Cordial

One of my (numerous) hobbies is historical reenactment. This upcomming weekend will find me, dressed in pretty Regency clothes, at the only fort in Brisbane. Two days on the edge of the cold Brisbane bay in Winter deserves some good food so I set about finding recipes from the early 19th century to make and take.

In Regency (Jane Austen) times, cordial was a term used for a sweetened liquid given to invalids. What we refer to as cordial in Australia today was called 'waters'. So the recipe I made would be called:
Strawberry & Cardamom Waters

• 2 cups water
• 2 cups castor sugar
• 2 tab lemon juice
• 2 x 250g punnets of strawberries
• 1/4 tsp cardamom seeds

Hull and halve the strawberries. (Mine were large suckers so I quartered them.)

In a saucepan stir the water, castor sugar and fresh lemon juice over low heat until sugar is dissolved. Raise the heat and simmer the liquid until it has reduced to a light syrup.


Add the strawberries and dried cardamom pods (I put mine in a tea caddy so they wouldn't be hard to remove from the strawberry pulp at the end). Simmer this for about 20 minutes.

Let cool for another 20 - 30 min.

Discard the cardamom seeds. Strain all syrup from the liquid through a fine sieve. (This may take some time!) Bottle in a sterilised bottle and voila! Delicious but very rich cordial.