Adventures in Food
Harry Potter’s polyjuice potion
It’s polyjuice potion time! What’s great about this magical concoction is…get this..it can be any color you want. Yup, before putting together my brew I checked on Harry Potter wikia and the color of the juice changes based on the person you want to become (dutiful HP readers would remember this). Gregory Goyle and Bellatrix Lestrange? Gross color, worse flavor. Mafalda Hopkirk (remember from the Ministry of Magic) was much more appealing. And Harry Potter‘s? Pure gold, of course.
So when it comes to crafting your version, have fun with the flavor and color. But I do have a few tips on making it taste fizzy and appear out of the ordinary. Pull out your caldron (that would be blender for us muggles) and start mixing.
1)1:1 juice to crushed ice ratio
Photo credit: Harry Potter wikia
I used grape juice to give the drink a bit of sourness. And instead of ice cubes, I chose crushed ice so that I didn’t have to blend it all the way. To me, polyjuice potion should be a bit crunchy instead of smooth so I pulsed 3 cups grape juice plus 3 cups crushed ice briefly.
2)Add yogurt
I added one container of berry yogurt to give the potion some creaminess and thickness. (You can use as much yogurt as you want just make sure only to pulse and not purify your concoction.)
3)Pop in berries–and spinach
My kids love smoothies so I wanted to make this one unique. Again, I thought having bits of various ingredients would make the drink feel more Harry Potteresque instead of smoothy-ish. I added 3/4 cup blueberries and 1/2 baby spinach and barely blended it so that the chunks of dark green and purple stood out. Finally, in the bottom of each glass I put in three blackberries so that when my kids were slurping up the last bits they’d find something unexpected.
Blueberries and spinach ready to be pulsed
4)Omit hair & lacewing flies
Yes, real polyjuice potion has the person’s hair in it that you want to turn into–along with some other ingredients I didn’t have on hand:), but I decided to forgo this step and instead sit back with my kids and watch Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince while downing our potion.
Your turn–what flavors would you put in your polyjuice potion? And what Harry Potter character would you most like to be?
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about 1 year ago
I would surely use cherries, and I suppose if I could be anyone … it would be Hermione.
about 1 year ago
Do you have a butterbeer recipe Kristen? I’ve been really craving it.
about 1 year ago
Good question. I’ll be including several Harry Potter links Friday, but here’s something to get you started from the Food Network http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/semi-homemade-cooking-with-sandra-lee/butterbeer-recipe/index.html. My little one doesn’t tolerate too sweet drinks so this one would be a no-go for us, but maybe I’ll make a small batch to try myself.
about 1 year ago
How about using watermelon? I’m looked on watermelon lately…can’t get enough of it.
But I was surprised by the addition of spinach – it doesn’t seem to go but I’ll trust you on this.
about 1 year ago
Watermelon sounds good. I wouldn’t mix in the yogurt then. But I don’t know, spinach + watermelon sounds okay to me. Especially with really sweet foods, spinach adds a bit of bitterness to cut through it. Lately my friends have been experimenting with spinach shakes for their kids so spinach has been on the brain–and in the blender. I love spinach.
about 1 year ago
I might have to use orange or tangerine, but find ways that it would not be overly sweet — like the idea of spinach. also how great about having the blackberries at the bottom for a treasure hunt.