CITY RIOTS’ 12 POINT GUIDE TO A GREAT SMOOTHIE
Words: Ricky Kradolfer
Whether it’s a morning breakfast pick me up, an evening delight, or a cheeky summer beverage, it’s hard for me to go past the perfect smoothie. From fruit based to milk based, to blended or pulsed, nothing quite beats the perfect combination of sweetness, fruitiness and tart to give you that ultimate, refreshing, rejuvenating and even healthy experience of a fresh fruit smoothie.
1. Fruit based smoothie: A constant argument I have with one of my best friends is what is better, fruit based smoothie or milk based smoothie. To be honest, when well planned out, both smoothie basedd options can be equally as great as each other. Fruit based, as the name suggests, is just fresh fruit, with fruit juice and ice and is a perfect beverage on that hot summer day. The key here is to ensure the fruit is fresh and you have the right balance with the ice. Too much ice and it’s too bland. Not enough ice and the fruit juices can become too overpowering to enjoy. The second critical factor is to ensure that the fruit work well together as a unit. For example, strawberry and banana are a great team. Blackberries and pineapple on the other hand are not, as they argue over your attention with their tartness and sweetness, leaving you with a bad fruit smoothie experience and potentionally some tears.
2. Milk based smoothie: These can be a little more complicated to perfect. Mainly because you are dealing with more ingredients. The trick to remember here is always have a little less milk than what you would think. It’s always easier to add more milk and fruit to balance the flavours. Remember the 4x3x2x1 proportion rule.
4 x Passive fruits (strawberry, banana, pear, apple, mango, etc)
3 x Tart fruits (blackberries, blueberries, raspberries, etc)
2 x Milk
1 x Ice
3. Type of Fruit: There are fruits that just love coming to the smoothie party, then there are others that just sit in the corner and put a bad taste in your mouth, so it’s important to choose your fruits wisely. You don’t always need to go fancy. Your standard fruits, like strawberries, bananas, mango, apple, orange will do a great job. If you really want to impress, try tropical fruits like guava, pomegranate, honeydew, passionfruit, kiwi fruit, mandarin, pawpaw and watermelon. Stay clear of fruits like grapes and cherries. They’ll only add too much tartness and overpower the sweetness of the other fruits.
4. Quality of juice (not from concentrate): Nothing makes me more angry than being out on tour, craving some 100% orange juice, only to find that you’ve purchased what you thought was orange juice, but what you really got was cordial mixed with water and orange flavour. I once got asked to leave a café in regional Queensland for getting into an argument with the waitress over this exact issue. Here’s the secret. Don’t be fooled by the line ‘Made from 100% Oranges’. Or the line ‘Made from all natural fruit juice’. They’re NOT the real thing. The big give away is the word ‘reconstituted’. If you see this word on the bottle, put the bottle back and walk the other way (and steal a packet of M&M’s on the way out, just for the shop stocking this ‘reconstituted’ nonesense). The only juice that should ever be used in smoothies should be made ‘NOT FROM CONCENTRATE’. It’s literally the difference between filling your car with premium unleaded or filling it with water. Choosing juice made from reconstituted juice will ruin your smoothie experience. So be careful.
5. Frozen berries vs. fresh berries: If you have access to them, fresh berries are always the pick over frozen berries. Where frozen berries are great is that you can keep them in the freezer to have on guard for those unexpected smoothie moments, and they keep for a long time. Be aware that you’ll need to use about double the amount to get the sweetness and tartness that you would usually expect from fresh berries. Frozen berries lose there immediate flavour once they are frozen, but when the right amount is used they can add to the great berry tartness, plus they always deliver a great chill element from their frozen quality.
6: Yogurt: Yogurt is a great addition to the milk based smoothie and adds that added healthy factor to give you piece of mind. The trick here is not to use cheap yogurt. Use a nice, Greek style yogurt with real berries. Don’t fall for any of that Yoplait stuff. It will only leave a bad after taste in your smoothie and will make all the amazing real fruit in the smoothie go to waste.
7. The use of pineapple: It’s very important to understand the potential presence of the fruits you are using. Pineapple is a great ingredient, but it is one of the only fruits that has the ability to completely ruin your whole smoothie experience. Pineapple rates 11 out of 10 on the potential presence scale. That’s right. It goes all the way to 11. It can very easily overpower all of the other fruits within the smoothie. Think of its as the Hulk Hogan of the smoothie world. Basically, when working with pineapple, be very careful to only use it in small doses. If you’re making a smoothie for one, start only with a 4x4cm piece. You can always add more later. Adding too much pineapple will have you on the back foot right from the start, and from my experience, it will just result in you having to start all over again. So when working with pineapple just be careful!! Don’t say I didn’t warn you.
8. Vanilla pod & Honey (add little cheekiness): Use these cheeky additions only in moderation and only in the smallest amounts. A real vanilla bean pod is the best, but they can be expensive and sometimes hard to find. Vanilla extract is the next best option, but don’t ever be fooled into use Vanilla essence. Put that in the bin, alongside your reconstituted juice. Honey is great too, especially for the morning smoothie and it goes great with the classic banana and honey combination, but once again be careful. Use it only small amounts.
9. The ‘Healthy’ ones: You’ve all seen them advertised. The ‘Rejuvenater’ The ‘Hangover’ The ‘Cleanser’. Basically they’re all just cashing in on the smoothie party to appeal to those ‘health conscious’ individuals. Don’t get me wrong. They can be great, but be careful. Look out for ones with too many ‘foliage’ ingredients, like coriander with wheatgrass and spinach. Don’t be fooled. These are not smoothies. All they do is turn your tastebuds upside down and give the smoothie we know and love a bad name.
10. Topping: The use of artificial topping (like the Cottee’s topping your nana has kept in her fridge for the past 5 years) is a definite NO GO. An absolute sin. If you see a bottle of topping behind a counter that has smoothies listed on their menu, your alarm bells should be ringing. Don’t be scared to ask the café/bar if they use artificial topping. It will not only save you from an angry smoothie moment, but will help to keep your smoothie consumption a special experience.
11. Blend then pulse: The blending technique is important to get that right smoothie texture. You want it smooth, but still want some little fruit chunks in there to keep you on your toes. When using a multi-purpose barmaid, set it on a medium speed to ensure you still get some cheeky little frozen berry bits bobbing around, then finish it off with the little pulse at the end to get all the bigger bits up from the bottom to make for an even pour into the glass.
12. Think outside the box (or blender): Don’t restrict yourself to just the conventional, traditional fruits. Step outside your comfort zone. Experiment with some of the left of centre tropical fruits from different continents. They provide those perfect fruit smoothie qualities. Why not try lychee, star fruit, jackfruit, pomegranate, calamansi or my personal favourite, young coconut juice. This will keep your personal smoothie experience exciting as well as give your friends a little something extra to look forward to when they come to visit or even at your next cocktail party.
So this summer, look out for a smoothie on your next café visit. Don’t be shy to try ones with fruits you may be unfamiliar with or even experiment at home with exotic fruits. Use the smoothie as an excuse to catch up with a friend, and even have a smoothie date with that guy and/or girl you’ve been swooning over. It will put you in a great mood, leave you feeling happy and get you in the perfect spirit for summer. And who knows, if you play your fruits right, you may just find yourself the pick of the bunch.
City Riots’ EP Matchsticks is out now. They are on tour this November with Gyroscope. For more info, look HERE
