Ginger Lime Soda

A couple months back, I suddenly noticed that the awesome Indian cookbook that I'd gotten for Justin as a Valentine's Day present clear back in 2008 had a drinks section in it that we'd never even touched.  As I curiously perused it, one of the things that stood out to me as something I'd love to try was this recipe for ginger lime soda, and once I'd managed to confirm that we actually could buy lime soda at the store (it was over with the Mexican and other "ethnic" foods), I decided to put it on the menu, and it turned out to be really tasty.  It's not something we'll make all the time, since we just don't drink much soda, but definitely a recipe to keep around.

The recipe calls for ginger juice, made by peeling and grating a piece ginger, and then squishing the grated ginger in a garlic press to make the juice come out.  It was actually easier to make than I thought it would be, though I do have the advantage of my awesome salad shooter that makes quickly grating the ginger a snap.  For the 2 Tbsp of ginger called for in the recipe, I used a piece of ginger that was a bit bigger than my palm: 

I thought that would be a bit too big, but it was actually just barely enough.

The recipe also calls for black salt (which, for some reason, is actually pastel pink):

We got ours at an Indian grocer during a trip to visit Justin's folks when they still lived in Maryland, but if you don't have an Indian grocer near you, you can get it (like everything else in the universe) on Amazon.  Black salt is salty, but also has a kind of sulfurish smell and taste reminiscent of egg yolks... judging by Amazon reviews, evidently it's a popular ingredient with vegans, who use it to give recipes an egg flavor without actually using eggs.  The taste isn't at all noticeable in the drink, so if you really don't want to buy the black salt, you could probably just leave it out or add a small amount of regular salt, but it would be missing that extra layer of flavor.

Ingredients:
2 Tbsp ginger juice
4 tspsugar
1/4 tsp black salt
1 Tbsp lime juice
1.5 liters lime soda
ice cubes (we used about half a tray)

Add all ingredients to a blender; blend well.  If, like us, your blender is not quite big enough to hold 1.5 liters of soda plus the ice, you can just put most of the soda in with the ice and the other ingredients and put the rest of the soda in whatever container you have that is actually big enough to hold 1.5 liters, and the pour the contents of the blender in with the rest of the soda after it's all blended. :)