Preserved Lemons

Check out the video recipe HERE.

As I write this we are in the Covid-19 lockdown. No fishing, no hardly any going out at all. The advice around the angling community has been to take this time to organize your gear, tie leaders, work on your boat, etc. Good idea, of course.

It occurred to me that this is also a good time to do some prep in the kitchen, to get ready for when we can start cooking our catch again.

Preserved Lemons are an ingredient that I have wanted to include in recipes on here for some time. It's a Moroccan style preparation that can be used in a bunch of different dishes. However I've avoided using them, as they take a month of curing time before you can use them. Kind of hard to drop that into a recipe that is intended for today's catch.

However, now you have no excuse to not step away from Netflix for half an hour, and prep some food for the post-lockdown days. So be warned! There will be Preserved Lemons as part of some upcoming recipes on here. If you don't have them ready to go.....

So let's get to the recipe.

You'll need:

• one 2 quart, or two each 1 quart mason jars

• 8-10 lemons: I Prefer Meyer lemons, but any lemons will work

• 1 cup of kosher salt, you won't need all of it, but have that much on hand

That's pretty much it. Once you put the lid on the jar, just store it in cupboard, not the fridge, for 4-6 weeks. Every couple days, give it a shake, to make sure everything gets evenly cured. Once they are cured, pull out the lemons a piece at a time as you need them. The rest can be kept in the brine for months. I like to refrigerate them once I open the jar, but that's not necessary.

The lemons will be soft, with an almost floral fragrance to them. You'll want to rinse the salt off before using them. Most people scrap away the pulp from the inside, and cut up the skin to use in recipes. I'll get to that in later posts though.

Have a look at the recipe video on my YouTube page for a more in depth look at the process.

Stay safe out there, everyone.