Preserved Lemons

I was reading Mike's thread about the gremolata, and Celia brought up preserved lemons.

I've found a couple of recipes calling for them, but I can't find them here in my small town. I know I could order them over the internet, but I thought it might be fun to try my hand at them. Do any of you make these yourself? Is it difficult? Does it involve (shudder) canning? (end of shudder)

Any advice would be appreciated.

Thanks.

It is plain and simple. You need lots of lemons and some time for them to age.

I use the smaller lemons with a good beefy rind. Meyer lemons have a nice flavor but are thin skinned and really not appropriate for the preserved lemons.

5 or 6 small lemons
1/2 cup or so of kosher salt

Wash the lemons well and dry completely. Cut them top to bottom less 1/2 inch so you will have a cut lemon starting to open like a flower. Place kosher salt inside the cut portions of the lemons, at least a tablepsoon per lemon. It is not critical to have too much salt on the cut portion.

Place the cut lemons with salt inside in a sterile quart canning jar or another container that is sterile and has a tight fitting lid.

Add to the jar:
1 cinnamon stick (ceylon is best)
3 whole cloves
6 coriander seeds
5 black malabar peppercorns
1 turkish bay leaf

Now fill the jar with fresh lemon juice all the way to the top. Dont skimp on the juice. DO NOT ADD ANY WATER.

Seal the jar. This part is optional. I place mine in the refer and turn it upside down and right side up every week for 2 months. After 2 months they are ripe and ready to use.

Remove one lemon or 1/2 lemon depending on what you are making. Remove the lemon pulp or fruit. Rinse the skin and use the skin only in your dish. Some people leave the skin whole and some people, like myself, mince the skin to use in a recipe.

Enjoy, they taste marvelous.

Patti. Ummm...the last time I tried to do this, I had fizzing lemons which worried me no end. I actually posted about it here.

After some internet research and a couple of panicked PMs to Mark L, I found that it's quite common for some lemons to fizz - because the lemons are actually fermenting. I ended up making four large jars, two for a friend's birthday, one to make preserved lemon and date chutney, and one which we're eating our way through now. The fizzing didn't hurt them at all. My recipe was pretty much the same as Mike's.

Just warning you in advance, but do give them a go, as they really are wonderful. Mike - why the no water rule? Some recipe I've read will say to top up with boiling water, or a combination of water plus lemon juice.

Cheers, Celia

Thank you both! I'll definitely try this.

When you say seal, do you mean as in a canning process? Or just a tight fitting lid?

This should be quite fun!

Tight fitting lid. I had to keep letting the pressure out though, so it wouldn't pop! Patti, if you have a lid that isn't metal, that should work better. The acid tends to corrode the metal lids.

Great! Thank you again.

I'll report how it goes.

Thank you both! I'll definitely try this.

When you say seal, do you mean as in a canning process? Or just a tight fitting lid?

This should be quite fun!

Tight fittng is what I mean. Dont attempt to can them, it is not necessary. RE:Water. Boiling water is the exception. However, if you use only lemon juice the finished product will be more flavorful than anything with water added.

Interesting! Mike's recipe is highly and interestingly spiced.

Another method (taught me by practitioners of north-African cooking) is "salted lemons," a profoundly simple and (I gather) ancient condiment. Very useful if you have seasonal surplus flavorful Meyer lemons for instance. These last for a year or two in the refrigerator I believe (though generally I use them sooner).

Take fresh ripe lemons, scrubbed clean, and make some incisions to let some juice through -- I make a crosswise cut partly down the length of each lemon from one end, it's not critical. Then I bury them in salt in a jar, making sure the leaking end of each lemon is in contact with salt. (Which then locally dissolves and diffuses throughout the lemon.) Close the lid and forget about them for a few months --

-- Until something comes up like a tagine or one of those German meat stews flavored with allspice and black pepper and lemons and onions, when you pull the lemons from the salt and brush or rinse off excess, before slicing them up. Hold off on other salt sources in the stew until the lemons have expressed themselves, but I find they don't absorb so much salt in the process that the lemons alone oversalt a stew.

Thank you all! I appreciate the help.

I'll let you know how they turn out.

Interesting! Mike's recipe is highly and interestingly spiced.

Another method (taught me by practitioners of north-African cooking) is "salted lemons," a profoundly simple and (I gather) ancient condiment. Very useful if you have seasonal surplus flavorful Meyer lemons for instance. These last for a year or two in the refrigerator I believe (though generally I use them sooner).

Take fresh ripe lemons, scrubbed clean, and make some incisions to let some juice through -- I make a crosswise cut partly down the length of each lemon from one end, it's not critical. Then I bury them in salt in a jar, making sure the leaking end of each lemon is in contact with salt. (Which then locally dissolves and diffuses throughout the lemon.) Close the lid and forget about them for a few months --

-- Until something comes up like a tagine or one of those German meat stews flavored with allspice and black pepper and lemons and onions, when you pull the lemons from the salt and brush or rinse off excess, before slicing them up. Hold off on other salt sources in the stew until the lemons have expressed themselves, but I find they don't absorb so much salt in the process that the lemons alone oversalt a stew.

Very interesting, Max! I've done preserved lemons similar to Mike's recipe in the past but have not heard of salted ones. We'll have to give them a try.

[Jenise]

More about preserved lemons: there are essentially two methods. Filling the jar with lemon juice and filling the jar with olive oil. Recipes for both variously call for a lot of salt or not. I tried both the juice and oil method (with salt) side by side the first time I made preserved lemons, and I found that the juice method ripened faster (refrigeration is not required and I did not refrigerate), were ready to go in about 3-4 weeks where the oil lemons took two months. However, once ready, the juice lemons broke down faster and were not so good after about four months, where the rind of the oil lemons stayed firmer and more opaque (the juice lemons turned clearish) and were pretty good for about a year. Which is best is, I'm sure, a matter of tradition and taste, but because the oil lemons also matched the texture of what I'd had that I'd fallen in love with at Momo restaurant in London, I preferred them.

Until this thread, I was only familiar with the salted ones.

Jenise, there's an important general caution re preserving any produce in oil. This got attention as a practical problem for restaurants trying to offer garlic cloves kept in oil. (It also occupies one of Roueché’s classic medical-detection stories, found in his published anthologies.)

there are essentially two methods. Filling the jar with lemon juice and filling the jar with olive oil. ... (refrigeration is not required and I did not refrigerate) ... the oil lemons took two months.

I'll phrase this carefully because of a potentially distracting factor.

Problem with preserving produce in oil is, that environment has been shown to favor anaerobic bacterial growth around the produce. Those are about the worst pathogens affecting food, and they are the reason commercial canning requires (by law) steam pressure cooking at high enough temp. to eliminate the bacteria. The most notorious of which (but not the only) is C. botulinum whose growth releases a strong poison. A factor that might suppress this growth is strong acid (lemon juice). The problem is, I see no way to guarantee that the fruit's entire surface (like outer skin or stem end) remains covered in this way if they're preserved in oil.

In the case Roueché popularized, mushrooms cooked in white wine and spices in a traditional Italian recipe, then preserved in oil, refrigerated I believe, killed someone. You can build in a safety step (not preventing, but counteracting, any such growth) by always cooking the preserves at least 10 minutes or so before using them, but that could still potentially leave risks to anyone handling the uncooked preserves.

An expert on this issue (I know one, alas not online) could comment further on exact conditions favoring or suppressing these bacteria. If I understand, preserving them in lemon juice, or lemon juice and salt, is much safer.

I can't seem to get the oil method right. I tried a Claudia Roden recipe for limes in oil, and they all went mouldy.