I first heard about preserved lemons from my brother, Ben, who was raving about how easy it was to make them and how delicious they were in salads. Well, I ignored that for awhile (who knows why) until I started to see Meyer lemons at the market and then I could resist no longer.
Essentially, preserved lemons are made by marinating lemons in their own juice and adding salt then letting them sit for about a month. Afterwards you may use the rind in various dishes. Here, I've done them two ways: preserved in a herb salt water brine and also with only salt and lemon juice. The one preserved in a salt brine also had a cinnamon stick, star anise, cloves, peppercorns, and a bay leaf added. I made two jars preserved with only the salt and lemon juice adding a bay leaf and cinnamon stick to one of them. Now to wait 4 weeks until they are ready...
Okay, I have no idea how one uses preserved lemons in a salad-want to enlighten me?
ReplyDeleteTo be honest this will be my first time using them, but my understanding is that they are basically used as a garnish. So on a salad you could chop up the rind into nice little pieces and garnish the salad. They are used a lot in Moroccan dishes too, I think. You could also used them to stuff inside the cavity of a whole fish or chicken or bake with them, too. I'll update the blog with what I use them for!
ReplyDeleteYeah, I was thinking Moroccan too, and the trout I had at the Left Bank the other night had lemon slices lying on it that were definitely not from fresh lemons. But now I'm wondering if the pulp kind of dissolves?? We'll look forward to finding out!
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