Tag Archives: Lemons

Paul’s cod

27 Thursday Mar 2014

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‘Local cod’ said the sign outside Paul’s Plaice, the only fishmonger left in Seaford, and then you go through the little chain-mail curtain into a shop that smells of the sea.

Paul works alongside his brother and I’ve never worked out which one is actually Paul, although it’s been explained to me enough times. Perhaps my brain has discounted it because it needs to stay alert for ‘novelties’ such as an oncoming car or a mountain lion. Apparently this is what the brain does, it has this discounting mechanism which I read about in Where’d you go Bernadette. I have also discounted the sea which roars all through the day and night outside my window. Every day it lies there, a different colour, doing something slightly different with itself. Occasionally it catches me and I notice it – a thin pencil line on the horizon or a big mushroom cloud of rain the same gunmetal grey as the waves, gulls flapping over a fishing boat like washing on a line, something suddenly surfacing – a snout? – and then going under. Then I forget.

Back in Paul’s Plaice, I notice a box of tiny fish as small as matchsticks with the name Smelt written above, which I think sounds rather Dickensian. They’re baby whitebait, according to ‘Paul’. They look too small to taste of anything, too fragile, almost pre-fish. They also have local plaice and cod, and everything is from the nearby fishery. They’re caught trawler style, because netting taints the fish with all the seaweed that gets caught up with it. What about line-caught, I ask him. ‘That’s just a bloke standing there with a fishing rod’, he says. ‘I can get it for you but it’s really expensive.’ I know from past experience that my mother has got mackerel for free by walking past a full bucket at just the right time, but obviously this takes a certain louche opportunism that is beneath Paul, who I can only describe as ‘bubbly’ though I know that makes him sound like an Avon lady.

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I cooked the cod and let me tell you it was so flipping good I went out and bought another three pieces, and ‘Paul’  thrust a whole handful of parsley into the bag for good measure. It was meaty yet tender, and chunks dissolved, not actually like butter, but with a gentle yielding buttery quality. I baked the cod in one of those parchment parcels, where it steams but also seals without drying out. You want the cod to somehow give itself to you, each layer opening, each cavity glistening, the smell of lemon and salt and heat and herbs, pale discs of pearly white, soft and supple. I think I’ll stop now.

Cod in a bag

With advice from Paul

Serves two

2 pieces of cod fillet, cut from the thick end (3 cm/1½ inches thick)

Olive oil & a small pat of butter

Lemon juice and the rind of 1 lemon

Sea salt

Fresh parsley (about four healthy sprigs)

Parchment paper

Butcher’s twine

Preheat the oven to 180C/350F. Arrange 2 sheets of parchment paper on a baking tray about double the size of each cod fillet. In the centre of the sheet put the cod and add what you like: here I added a pat of butter, some fennel fronds, a little glug of olive oil, a squeeze of lemon juice, the lemon rind cut thickly and some sea salt. But you can add anything; bay leaves, thyme, chillies, garlic, thinly sliced potatoes etc. Pull the corners of the parchment paper together and twist shut.  Secure with some butcher’s twine. Slide the tray into the oven and bake for about 15-20 minutes. Open the bag to check it’s done and sprinkle the insides with chopped parsley.

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Empty legs

20 Thursday Feb 2014

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I had my first shiatsu session the other day (along the same lines as acupuncture but using physical pressure instead of needles), and the man told me I had ’empty legs’. I had empty legs and empty feet, particularly my arches. This is nothing new – when I was a drama school student, the teachers’ main beef with me was that I had ‘dead legs and frozen eyes’. Someone else was described as having ‘no back’. It’s something to do with parts of our bodies being absent to us. The answer these days is to swim more, but I have not ventured into the English Channel since November and certainly don’t intend to now, with the huge brown swell, the sudden big lurching tide that would vanish me in a second. All I do is look at it from the balcony; a passenger on a boat that never docks.

But I know what he means about swimming. In LA I swam every day in an open-air pool. The area was fringed with merry red Bougainvillea, insubstantial as paper and smelling of nothing. My wet footsteps evaporated behind me making me handily invisible. It was all man-made and relatively new; units instead of flats, everything built for the purpose, everything clean. At first glance there is nowhere to hide, no nooks or crannies so you are exposed to the neighbours wanting to chat/complain about the perfect temperature of the water, the ‘chill’ in the air when there is none, the only thing fluttering being the leaf of a book or a butterfly. It feels an empty landscape.

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Until you take yourself off; behind the tennis court is a narrow pathway where there is a pendulous lemon tree; Eureka lemons that are thick and pock-marked and heavy in the hand and need a hoe to get a purchase. Sprouting like mad hair is wild fennel and the smell is strong and medicinal and follows you to the orange trees, their diseased leaves and strongly floral blossoms heady like some kind of deathly elixir. A wild peach tree stands anonymously with blossoms like any other and tough herbs lead the way round the complex. Yards from the pool is this alchemy of smell coming up from the dust.

For me the pull to this landscape is stronger, particularly now that I know about our own Meyer lemon tree and its rash of blossom and the ‘eight or nine’ hummingbirds that visit it every day. And Joe is there doing the B&B in my stead, greeting the guests, not making the lemon shortbread or jam or ironing the sheets (‘I’m not going to do it like you’), but feeding the stray cat and getting rave reviews and being lovely as only he can be. Here in England there is rhubarb and snowdrops and long cold doused days and the obscene trickle of rainwater as it finds the nape of the neck. Bay trees stand to attention outside glossy eateries but it rarely occurs to me to take a leaf and scrunch it up, and smell its warm spiky clove-ness.

Occasionally it feels like fun; the new roomy Circle Line and the hoards of children on half term holiday on the tubes and the buses up in London (‘hold on to the yellow, Imogen!’). A small boy in a bike helmet traces his F Words To Work On next to me with his finger: frightened, fallow, fall, fat. And suddenly I feel bereft that there’ll be no Imogen in LA, none of these terribly English moments. So I make myself think of the sun, like a huge melting pat of butter in the sky. The blue will be the most unEnglish blue. The herbs will be virulent, wild and prolific and the air will smell of them. I’ll stride out, lunge into water and then feel it evaporate on my skin. I’ll have my own bowl of lemons, the car, the pool, that constant sun again (always the same), a brilliant dry cleaner, empty streets. Hopefully no more empty legs.

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The B&B lemon shortbread began life as Jane Grigson’s shortbread knobs in her Fruit Book though I have doctored them with lemon zest and almonds. They are incredibly simple to make: melt 175g unsalted butter over a medium heat and add the finely grated zest of two lemons. Allow this to infuse and cool. Then add to the butter 200g of plain flour, 25g of ground almonds, 125g of sugar and a pinch of sea salt (all mixed together beforehand in a bowl). Make a sandy paste and then roll the mixture into little teaspoon-sized balls which you then press slightly to flatten. Bake on trays with parchment paper at 150C/300F for about 25 minutes. They’re done when they’re golden brown. Sometimes I drop a couple of torn bay leaves into the melted butter to infuse – is this wrong? I don’t know but I like the smell and fish them out before adding the flour.

Lemon, almond, olive oil cake

14 Tuesday May 2013

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These are no ordinary lemons. They are Meyer lemons, big and blowsy, a deep yellowy-orange, the colour of fresh egg yolk. The smell and feel are both quite different to the pocked and gnarly Eureka, say: smoother, sweeter, riper, heavier in the hand. They are poreless, and at times almost round, and their leaves are dark and glossy. And they came from our friends’ garden. Before we got to the lemon tree, I was taken on a tour by their eight-year-old daughter, who picked me a posy of clover to eat (peppery) and we examined the orange tree we had given them as a present, which was actually two trees grafted on to one root. Their avocado tree was huge with leaves like big, green jazz hands. There were no more avocados though, so we stood and admired the foliage.

The lemon tree was matted with cobwebs. There was a birdhouse that hung from one of the branches which looked as though it had its own hammock, so cleverly had the house been divided by the spider’s yarn. When we brought the lemons home and lifted them out, spiders skittered over the surfaces of the fruit, unmoored. I liked the way that parts of the tree were still attached; bits of branch, leaves sprouting, as if the fruit was still in the throes of living.

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We are back to the stagnant heat again. All this week there will be nothing to break the seal. The air is utterly still where we are, and at night one feels cloaked in it. The only place to be is the coast where there is a sea mist and a breeze.  Inland we are engulfed; like characters from a Tennessee Williams play, we are bathed in a halo of glowing sweat. It seems the next logical step is a silk negligee and a bottle of scotch.

Although it may seem strange, being in the kitchen at times like this is actually a reprieve. Inside is cooler. Of course, if you have a glut of lemons, making lemonade would be perfect on days like these: a jug filled with ice and mint, frothing with syrupy lemon fizz. But this is a light cake and goes well with fresh seasonal fruit (the first apricots are in). I wanted to do something sufficiently involving and I liked the processes involved. I have made this flourless; it gives it a lovely dampness and it goes down beautifully. (In fact I wanted to call this post Rising Damp because the memory made me smile but I couldn’t fit it all in).

I blanched, roasted and ground the almonds myself – it makes a difference if you like uneven nuttiness in a cake, which I profess I do. It doesn’t rise and fall quite as dramatically as other ‘broken’ cakes I have featured, such as the chocolate marmalade slump cake and the bitter chocolate olive oil cake but it has the same softly flattened character.

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Lemon, almond, olive oil cake

Adapted (almost beyond recognition) from Pastry Studio

I am quite hardcore here about the almond preparation but using a packet of already ground almonds is totally acceptable. Give them a gentle toast in a frying pan beforehand to release flavour. If you are using regular lemons, the cake will generally be sharper and taste more lemony.

Serves 8

5 free range eggs, separated

150g (5½ oz) sugar, divided

175ml (6 fl oz) extra virgin olive oil

Juice of 1 lemon

Finely grated zest of 2 lemons

175g (6 oz) blanched, toasted and ground almonds

½ tsp salt

1 tbs sugar, for the top of the cake

Preheat the oven to 350F/180C. Lightly grease a 23cm (9in) cake tin with olive oil and line with parchment.

Beat the yolks and just under half of the sugar until thick and pale. Reduce the whisk to medium speed and drizzle in the olive oil. Then add the lemon juice and zest. The mixture may look a bit sloppy. Sift half the ground almonds into the batter and fold in gently. Sift in the remaining almonds until combined, making sure to lift up the batter from the bottom and sides of the bowl. Beat the egg whites with the salt until foamy. Slowly rain in the rest of the sugar until they hold a soft, satiny peak. Fold a third of the whites into the yolk mixture to lighten the batter, then fold in the remaining whites.

Pour the batter into the prepared pan and gently tap the bottom on to a work surface to release any air bubbles. Sprinkle the 1 tbs of sugar on to the top of the cake (don’t omit this as it gives the cake a nice crunch). Bake until the cake is puffed and golden – about 30 minutes. Place on a wire rack to cool for 10 minutes. Release the cake and let it cool completely. Gently invert the cake and remove the paper. Serve with some crème fraîche and some poached apricots or other seasonal fruit.

If-in-doubt Lemon Tarts

25 Monday Feb 2013

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Sometimes I feel that I’m losing my touch. I’m sure this is normal, but it’s unnerving. How can you go wrong with lemon tart? Anything with lemons, I’m told, and I’m a sure-fire winner. I have a way with the lemon. So I was feeling rather cavalier, particularly as these reminded me of jam tarts. Not so much jam as gel, admittedly, and a bit rubbery. And the way the pastry rose up in the oven was odd, upending the lemon mixture, which lay blank and flabby on the floor of the pan. It was all rather irregular.

I was unsure what to write about this week. Or what to make. Perhaps this was what did it. The Oscars were coming to Hollywood for which we needed to be prepared. Halle Berry and Ben Affleck and various plasticated lovelies would be sashaying down the red carpet, and the road was closed off for days in preparation for this world-changing event. We had people over to watch it live and bet on who would win. I decided to make something with lemons. We have a rather bedraggled-looking lemon tree which produces small, intensely perfumed and rather sweet Meyers, but mainly we just pilfer them from the overhang of other people’s trees. You walk along and pop them in your pocket, while looking innocently around you as if new to the area.

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I started off exploring a new recipe. It looked easy, but following a recipe is never just about following instructions. The language is important: it needs to be straight-forward, clear, unfussy. Lyrical is fine but too much information and I am apt to skip things, become impatient. I am not a baking nerd. And an old recipe is like an old friend – you pick up where you left off. One look at the page covered in pencilled amendments and various spillages, and I know we’ve been through something together, this recipe and me. There is also such a thing as muscle memory – the body remembers even if you don’t. A few swipes of a wooden spoon, an egg in the hand about to be cracked and the page warrants only a cursory glance from then on in. So the recipe below is a tried and trusted one – a lovely, simple Rick Stein offering that has never failed me.

The rather prosaic-looking bars (above) are easier to manage at a party, but go for the classic and classier tart shape if you wish. You can certainly improvise here with other citrus, such as grapefruit, lime and even bergamot, if such a thing exists near you. Passion fruit (the juice of) may work too. However, nothing quite does the lemon’s job. I also add the zest for a bit of textural oomph. Use the left-over squeezed lemons for cleaning the sink.

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Lemon tarts

From Rick Stein, Food For All Occasions (Puddings)

For the sweet pastry: (makes about 350g/12 oz)

175g (6 oz) plain flour

A small pinch of sea salt

50g (2 oz) icing/confectioners’ sugar

100g (4 oz) chilled butter, cut into pieces

1 egg yolk

1 – 1½ tsp cold water

For the filling:

6 medium eggs, beaten

3 large lemons

250g (9 oz) caster/superfine sugar

150ml (5 fl oz) double/thick cream

For the pastry – sift the flour, salt and sugar into a food processor or bowl. Add the pieces of chilled butter and work together briefly, either in the food processor or with your fingertips, until the mixture looks like fine breadcrumbs. Stir in the egg yolk and enough water until the mixture starts to come together into a ball (or add to the processor and process briefly), then turn out on to a lightly floured surface and knead briefly until smooth. Roll the pastry out thinly on a lightly floured surface and use to line a lightly greased, 25cm (10 in), loose-bottomed flat tin, 4cm (1½ in) deep. Prick the base here and there with a fork and chill for 20-30 minutes.

Preheat the oven to 200C/400F. Line the pastry case with crumpled greaseproof paper, cover the base with a thin layer of baking beans (or rice) and bake for 12-15 minutes, until the edges are biscuit-coloured. Carefully remove the paper and beans/rice and return the pastry case to the oven for 3-4 minutes. Remove, brush the inside of the case with a little of the beaten egg and return to the oven once more for 2 minutes. Remove and lower the oven temp to 120C/250F.

For the filling – finely grate the zest from 2 of the lemons, then squeeze out enough juice from all the fruit to give you 175ml (6 fl oz). Beat the eggs and sugar together until just mixed but not frothy. Mix in the lemon juice and cream, pour through a sieve into a jug and stir in the lemon zest.

Partly pull out the oven shelf, slide in the pastry case and pour in the filling. Slide the shelf back in and bake the tart for 40-45 minutes, until just set – the mixture should still be quite wobbly in the centre but it will continue to firm up after it comes out of the oven. Remove and leave to cool, but don’t refrigerate it. This tart is best served on the day it is made. Wedges or bars – you decide, and a bit of crème fraîche is lovely alongside.

Lemon sherbet

08 Wednesday Aug 2012

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Remember these? Frozen lemons volcanically erupting with white, sugary snow. Except I never tasted one. I saw them, ogled them from afar; they nested indolently  – hard, little yellow bricks stacked in carts outside French bistros. I could never get up the courage to ask for one. Perhaps I secretly knew it was too adult for my taste. One bite and it would all be over and then I’d feel bad.

But at every port we sailed into in Brittany, I would go through the same internal dialogue, the slow build, the beginning of bravery, starting with, “Dad, can I ask you a question?” To which he would answer “Yes.” “Actually, it doesn’t matter.” Silence. “You’ll probably say no.” “I won’t know what it is until you ask me.” “It’s fine.” What I wanted was for it to be dragged out of me. My mind to be read. Perhaps if I just looked lingeringly in the direction of the ice creams he’d get the idea. But I was taken at my word, and remained lemonless.

Each port town we sailed away from – Paimpol, Tréguier, Lezardrieux – I would imagine finding the courage for the next place, and then the next. But suddenly – or gradually, tortuously – we were sailing back home, where there were no frozen lemons.

So it remains a foreign food, a still life. And actually making it myself, though it looks gorgeous with its lemon hat and sticky, oozing syrup, it remains something I long to see for sale. There would need to be barriers to acquiring it – a foreign language, a shaky grasp of the currency perhaps. Some pointing would be necessary. My own frozen lemon, paid for in cash.

Strictly speaking, I was talking about sorbet, but sherbet has more fizz, more of a creamy wave to it, so I have opted for that. To clarify, sorbet is the ‘mother ice’ from which many others have issued. It is made from a sugar syrup with the juice of fruit added. Originally, sorbet was snow infused with flowers.

Sherbert, on the other hand, is really the first ever recorded ice cream. The name is most likely an attempt at the Arabic word sharbat. It has a small amount of cream added to a sorbet base. It is light and soft, cold as hell, with a wonderful citrus tang. I know we shouldn’t think of those lemon sherbets – lozenges that melt into a sweetly-sour plateau on the tongue, the kernel of which contains an explosion of fizzing sugar – but I can’t help myself.

Lemon Sherbet

Adapted from Jamie Oliver, Jamie’s Italy

Makes enough for 6

200g/7oz sugar

200ml/7fl oz water

200ml/7fl oz lemon juice

zest of 1 lemon

1 heaped tablespoon mascarpone or crème fraîche

Pre-freeze a shallow 20-25cm/8-10 inch container (if you don’t have an ice cream maker), or the shells of the lemons, if you like the look.

Put the sugar and water in a pan and bring to the boil, then turn the heat down and continue to simmer for 5 minutes. Once the liquid is clear and syrupy, remove it from the heat and allow it to cool for 15 minutes, then add the lemon juice and zest. Taste it and see if you find it palatable – it needs to be sour, but not horribly so. Add more sugar if you think it needs it. Next, add the mascarpone or crème fraîche and stir until completely combined.

Chill in the fridge. If you don’t have an ice cream maker, pour the mixture into your pre-frozen dish and return it to the freezer – leave it for at least an hour before you check it. If it has started to freeze, fork it up a bit. Do this every hour for the next 3 hours, after which it’ll be ready to eat. It can be kept for a couple of days in the freezer, but it will start to get ice crystals soon after. If you have an ice cream maker, follow the instructions, and decant into the lemon shells if you want to be a bit French about it.

Juice: Instead of lemon you can experiment with grapefruit, blood orange, clementine, or mandarin juice. A couple of tablespoons of sweet sherry (Pedro Ximénez has a strong taste of raisins and molasses) would also be a warming component, if the spirit takes you. Chilling dulls flavour, so taste before freezing and be bold.

Lemon drizzly

06 Tuesday Mar 2012

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I’m aware I might be going overdrawn on my ‘lemon’ account with this recipe, but this really is sublime. It also works equally well with limes, if you want something more piercing. In either case, the loaf cake is made doubly moist, first with the addition of ground almonds and then with the soaking it gets from the lemon/lime syrup. It keeps for ages.

I used thyme here too; it is one of those shrubby herbs you can be quite flagrant with, unlike sage or rosemary. Whenever I’ve been tentative, it looks as though a couple of green flies have fallen into the mixture and need fishing out. It should look deliberate, so be generous. Thyme adds a resinous, woodland warmth, and tempers the sweetness. It goes particularly well with lemon; both are part of the Mediterranean palate, and with some light roughing up over heat, the smell can quickly conjure up memories of scorched earth, sea air and the sigh of singed, crackling wood over flame. Needless to say, you can leave it out.

This cake is based on a Nigel Slater recipe, a food writer with the soul of a gardener in my view. I decided on the thinnest layer of lemon icing on top; it has never felt too much and it makes the cake less gooey to handle. Anyway, that’s my excuse. Candied lemons are a good standby.

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Lemon loaf cake

Adapted from Nigel Slater, Crumbs of Comfort, The Observer

At the risk of appearing slightly hysterical, this is the best lemon loaf cake I’ve ever eaten/made. It is simplicity itself and yet tastes quite amazing. People will think you’re professionally trained. 

For the cake:

200g butter, softened

200g caster sugar

3 large free range eggs at room temperature

80g plain flour (rice flour works well here too)

100g ground almonds

2 teaspoons of thyme leaves (optional)

Grated zest of 1 whole lemon (reserve the juice for the syrup)

Half a teaspoon of baking powder

Pinch of salt

1 loaf tin (8″ x 5″)

For the syrup:

4 tbsp sugar

Juice of 1 large lemon (see above)

For the candied lemons (optional)

3 lemons, thinly sliced

100g caster sugar

100ml water

Pre-heat the oven to 350F/175C. Butter and line the loaf tin with baking parchment. Sift the baking powder, salt and flour together. Cream the butter and sugar till they are pale and fluffy. Gradually beat in the eggs, alternating with the flour mixture to stop it curdling. Grate the lemon zest and mash it with the thyme leaves, if using, in a pestle and mortar or with the base of a jar; tearing the leaves helps release their essential oils. Or just add the lemon zest to the cake mixture, along with the ground almonds. Fold the mixture into the lined tin and bake for approximately 40 minutes or until a skewer comes out clean.

While the cake is baking, dissolve the sugar in the lemon juice over a low heat – taste as you go and add more sugar if need be. Remove from the heat and steep for 20 minutes. When the cake comes out of the oven, pierce it all over with a skewer and pour over the syrup. Allow to cool.

If you want to go a bit ‘Elvis’ with it, as I did, add a thin shell of lemon icing on top of the tacky-dry syrup; wet 6 heaped tablespoons of sifted icing sugar with 2 generous tablespoons of lemon juice and spread over the cake, letting it drip down the sides. Keep the cake wrapped tightly in foil for a few days to moisten if you can.

For the candied lemons, bring a pan of water to the boil and blanch the sliced lemons by putting them in the boiling water for five minutes. Drain and set aside. In another pan, bring the sugar and water to the boil, add the lemons and simmer for about 10-15 minutes, or until the white pith turns translucent. The lemon slices will go sticky and shiny. Allow them to cool on greaseproof paper. Store in an airtight container, or place on top of the cake for a pleasant finish. They’re quite chewy.

Optional extra: Add crushed cardamom from 1½ tbsp green cardamom pods (put the seeds in a pestle and mortar and crush to a coarse powder) to the butter/sugar before creaming. I think it gives the cake a slightly mystical, smoky flavour. Shout out to Good Things to Eat by (my cousin) Lucas Hollweg for this lovely addition to a lemon cake.

 

A word about lemons

27 Monday Feb 2012

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I love lemons. I love the way they sit all plump and jaunty in the bowl, the zing of oil from the rind, that spike of sparkling acid on the tongue. A lemon tree heavy in fruit and blossom is simply a wonder of nature.

To be mercantile for a moment, a ripe lemon is firm but not hard and should feel heavy for its size. Thin-skinned tends to be juicier than thick and bigger isn’t necessarily better (this is also true in life generally). The juiciest is the very thin-skinned Meyer (Citrus Meyerii), an LA stalwart. Not considered a true lemon at all but a hybrid – a cross between a lemon and a mandarin, some say, though its parentage is unknown – it has a sweeter, more complex, layered flavour, less acidic but still tart enough to perk up discoloured fruits and overly sweet or rich puddings. It cleverly cuts through sugar and cream, lifting a dish to subtle heights of piquancy and freshness. More sour is the Lisbon and Eureka. Lisbon is the juicier of the two, while Eureka is the standard lemon most of us have knocking about. It’s also the one most likely to have been infiltrated with fungicides, insecticides and waxes to make it more appealing. A Eureka picked from the tree is an entirely different animal: cobwebby, misshapen and mottled, and not a bright, waxy yellow at all, but a gentle ochre. With its sea-green leaves attached, it’s almost biblical.

It’s sad we have become such shallow meddlers in the sex life of the lemon. Its journey to ripeness, the subtle changes in colour, weight and fragrance are all to seduce us into plucking it in its prime, thus allowing the reproductive cycle to continue. There’s something almost touching in the knowledge that, being picked, the fruit is experiencing physical pressure for the first time; no longer suspended in mid-air, attached to its parent, it must come down to earth.

You could also try

  • Yuzu (Citrus Yunos) if you can get hold of it. It’s a Japanese citron that fruits early – around September or October here. Because of its exceptional tartness, it holds up well to being cooked at high temperatures and is used as a souring ingredient, specifically in the Japanese sauce, Ponzu. It also works well as marmalade and makes a fragrant, rind-heavy syrup, used often in Korean cuisine.
  • Ponderosa (Citrus Pyriformis) which looked like a grapefruit to me, but is actually a lemon-citron hybrid. The Middle Eastern community in LA apparently makes jam out of the thick rind, which has a floral scent. It also makes a fine lemon curd.
  • Sorrento lemons, also known as Femminello St. Teresa. Native to the Amalfi coast in Italy, they’re typically the variety used in making limoncello, a bitter digestif that uses lemon rind steeped in grain alcohol (which apparently you could also use to run your car). Layers of tufo and limestone in the area create the perfect soil for cultivation, which produces an exceptionally aromatic rind. Locals eat thick slices of this citrus, skin and all, with a dusting of sugar.

Ponderosa Lemons

Some Ideas

  • Hang some lemon peel out to dry in a warm place (by a sunny window, say). When it’s leathery, put it in a jar of sugar and use for baking.
  • I have seen children eat neat lemon quarters here as I used to do oranges (making the segment cover your teeth and then smiling eerily etc). I was both impressed and alarmed by this. I’m not suggesting you do the same, just informing you of the phenomenon.
  • Lemon-infused olive oil, also known as agrumato in Italy, is best made at home, and used within a couple of days. In Skye Gyngell’s recipe, you finely peel the zest – no pith – of 3 lemons using a vegetable peeler. Put in a pan with 1 cup (250ml) of extra virgin olive oil, and heat very gently to body temperature (about 99F). Remove and let steep for about an hour before using. Lovely drizzled over grilled fish, chicken, Burrata, buffalo mozzarella, ricotta or fresh Mexican cheese.
  • Lemon sandwiches, courtesy of Mrs Grigson: “Cut fresh, soft-skinned lemons into very thin slices and sandwich them between thin wholemeal bread slices, thickly buttered. Serve with smoked salmon and marinaded fish.”
  • North African Preserved Lemons

 A doddle, and fantastic strewn over ice cream, in tagines, added to sauteed vegetables, couscous, and mashed into a herby butter. Use Eureka lemons because their thick skins are a bonus here, but make sure they’re organic and unsprayed as the peel is what you’ll be eating, not the flesh. Cut 8-10 washed lemons into quarters from top to stem, without going all the way, and pack the cuts with a generous tablespoon of coarse sea salt (never table salt). Squash the lemons into a large, glass jar, giving them a good ramming to get the juices flowing. Add any or all of these: a cinnamon stick, a whole dried chili, a bay leaf, a few cardamom pods and coriander seeds, then seal and leave overnight. For the next 2-3 days, keep pressing the lemons down, as they begin to deflate. Now top up with fresh lemon juice so that the fruit is fully submerged and leave for about a month, after which time they’ll be ready to use. Keeps for about six months, looking vibrant and virtuous on your kitchen shelf.



How not to die from marmalade

23 Thursday Feb 2012

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To clarify, you can’t die of botulism from a dodgy jar of marmalade; leave that to the pickled cucumbers (although apparently they won’t kill you either, see the marvellous Sandor Katz). Pretty much the worst thing that can happen is mould. To avoid this, you want clean, hot jars, hot marmalade and sufficiently high levels of sugar and acid to inhibit the growth of bacteria. 212F is enough to kill off all the nasty buggers. An instant-read thermometer is a wise investment here; It doesn’t have to be hugely expensive and it’s a very handy piece of kit, good also for making fresh cheese, checking roasted meats and deep frying.

Although it’s tempting when you see the mountain of sugar sitting in the saucepan surrounded by a moat of juice, don’t skimp on the amount called for. The sweetness will mellow over time. I put my jars and lids (if the seal comes separately always use a new one, as it does degrade) in the dishwasher and then in a medium hot oven for ten minutes just before filling, and then again after sealing. If you’re unsure about whether to hand this out to friends, or if the lid ‘pops’ as the marmalade cools, just keep the jars in the fridge and eat within a year. Otherwise, store in a cool, dark place.

Lemon Curd

20 Monday Feb 2012

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Lemon curd is so simple to make, it’s almost off-putting. Hard to imagine that whisking eggs, butter, sugar and lemon juice in a pan on the stove for a bit could yield anything other than a hot mess. And yet if there was ever such a thing as sunshine in a jar, this is it: bright, tangy, soft as velvet, and delicious eaten briskly cold on hot toast. 

Fruit curd was originally made in stone pots that stood in pans of hot water and were then stored on the still-room floor – a room that was used as a distillery for herbs, medicines and alcohol in medieval times, and later for the storage of jams and jellies. And why curd? In this instance, the word appears to come from curdling (ironically the only thing you don’t want it to do). Some like their curd yolkier than this, but for my money Delia Smith’s ratio is unimprovable. I find whisking rather than stirring creates a lighter texture with a touch more wobble to it, but if solid is what you’re after, use a wooden spoon.

Lemon Curd

Adapted from Delia Smith’s recipe

Makes about 3 8oz/half pint jars (with some left over for immediate use)

Grated zest and juice of 4 large, organic, unwaxed lemons

4 large eggs

350g organic cane sugar

225g unsalted butter at room temperature, cut into cubes

Sterilise the jars by putting them through a cycle in the dishwasher and then transferring them to a warm oven for ten minutes. Whisk the eggs lightly before adding them to a non-stick pan. Finely grate the zest of the lemons (no bitter white pith), squeeze out the juice and add both to the pan along with the sugar. Very gently heat while continuing to whisk with a balloon whisk until it starts to thicken (8-10 minutes). Slightly increase the heat and continue to whisk for a couple more minutes, but do not let the curd boil or you’ll have scrambled eggs.

Remove from the heat, and add the cubed butter, stirring to mix. Make sure the butter has completely melted into the mixture before straining the curd into the sterilised jars. If you like a grainier texture, add some fresh zest. Seal immediately. Even if the curd feels thinner than you would like, it will continue to thicken as it cools. You can’t ‘can’ home-made curd; commercial curd has thickening agents and artificial preservative in order to make it shelf-stable. But what the heck. Lemon curd keeps for up to a month in the fridge and is lovely given as a gift. I know of no one who can refuse it.

Thoughts on lemons

Curd made with the sweeter, milder Meyer lemon blooms gently in the mouth. If you want more of a kick, go for Eureka, Lisbon or Ponderosa. Add intrigue with some lime juice and zest.

What else to eat it with

Spread on a grilled slice of cake or dollop/wallop it into thick berry-strewn yoghurt. American-style pancakes (small, densely stacked, evil) straight from the pan and served with curd and a curl of creme fraiche would make a decadent brunch. And finally, a pot of lemon cream: Mix three heaped tablespoons of lemon curd with the same of Greek yogurt and creme fraiche, some lemon zest and a spritz of lemon juice, and you have a heart-stopping (hopefully not literally) devil of a dessert, which also works well as an accompaniment to a warm pudding. Ta da.

Lemon Posset

04 Saturday Feb 2012

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The beauty of the posset lies in its simplicity. There are only three ingredients – cream, sugar and lemons – so provenance is all. Get organic, unwaxed lemons; better yet get Meyer lemons (if you can), which are less tart, less acidic. Possets have been traced back to 15th century England where they were used as a remedy for colds and ‘minor illnesses’. Lady Macbeth used a posset to knock out the guards in the Scottish play, though in fairness it was probably the ramekin that did it.

I have served this to our B&B guests for breakfast, who partake of it as you would a rich yoghurt. Poached, seasonal fruit is also a welcome addition. It takes a certain bravery to serve it as pudding; it is very modest-looking, but lovely as a bright, clean finish to a heavy meal. There’s something in the method of boiling the cream with the sugar and then, with the addition of the lemon juice, feeling your spoon gently drag that is quite different to the heavier set of a mousse, say, and more akin to a delicately wobbling custard or blancmange. I am also remembering the quivering junkets of yesteryear.

Here, I’ve used Meyer lemons, and on a separate outing, bergamots.  Blood orange also works well, with some added lemon juice to give it bite. It’s the middle of the season for these citruses, so seek them out.

Lemon Posset

Adapted from Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall, Dairy Queen, The Guardian

150g of caster sugar

600 ml of double cream

3 good sized lemons to yield 80ml of juice

Zest of 1 lemon

Finely grate a whole lemon, being careful to avoid the bitter white pith (a Microplane zester is brilliant for this), and set aside the zest. Squeeze enough lemon juice to make 80 ml. Put the cream and sugar in a non-stick pan and warm gently to dissolve the sugar. Bring to the boil, and boil for exactly 3 minutes without stirring. Remove the pan from the heat and stir in the lemon juice. Strain into a jug, add the zest and leave to cool, stirring occasionally to stop a skin forming – I put the jug into a bowl filled with ice cubes. When the mixture is at room temperature, pour into 4 ramekins or small glasses, cover with foil and refrigerate for at least 4 hours, or overnight. Serve with the Cocoa and Earl Grey Shortbread, a smattering of raspberries or simply as it is.