Thursday 20 February 2014

Oranges and Lemons Part Two

Right... preserved lemons this time...

Version One:

A recipe sent to me after having a wonderful lemon pasta with a friend....

Cut up the fresh unwaxed lemons into thick slices, remove the pips and then cover them with salt.  Leave in a colander for 24 hours to extract the juice.

After 24 hours shake off as much salt as possible, rinse the slices of lemon and then dry them with kitchen roll.  Place the lemon slices into a jar with a clove of garlic a fresh or dried chilli pepper if you wish and a few leaves of fresh coriander, then top it up with olive oil.  Tilt the jar and run a knife around the edge to release any air bubbles before closing the jar and leaving it for about a month before use.



Once I opened it, I kept it in the fridge and obviously the olive oil solidifies.  It shouldn't be necessary to keep it in the fridge because the covering of oil keeps the lemons fresh, but as you can see here the lemons are actually poking up over the top of the oil a bit... in this case I should simply have added more oil, but I didn't.  Either way, the lemons are still great and simply need bringing to room temperature before using.



Preserved lemons are tasty with fish, chicken or pasta and the lemon scented oil can be used for cooking, dressing salads, pasta sauces or for dipping with a nice crusty bread and some balsamic vinegar

Version Two:

This one can be found in many middle eastern cookery books... the lemons are preserved in lemon juice and salt.


Take fresh unwaxed lemons and make four cuts down towards the stem end without going all the way through.


Pack loads of salt into the cut lemons and then squash them down into a jar...



.....pack them really tightly.  Pour a little more salt onto the lemons and put the lid on.


Leave the jar of lemons somewhere where you won't forget about it and for the next four or five days give it a daily shake.  You will see more and more juice coming out of the lemons.



After five days top up the jar with fresh lemon juice and replace the lid.



The lemons can now be stored in the cupboard.  They should be left for at least one month before using... (date them in case you forget) but I think with all these things they improve with time... so maybe two or three months if you can bear to wait that long.


If you bear with me I shall be posting a recipe that uses preserved lemons in salt in about two months time.

Oranges?  er... mmmm... well I ended up simply juicing and freezing them.  I haven't done anything with the juice yet but will hopefully have a recipe for an orange jelly in the next week or two.

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