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Dora's recipe: Preserved lemons

Dora's recipe looks at the history of lemons in Greece with a recipe for preserved lemons

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Dora's recipe: Preserved lemons
30 Sep 2011
Dora Kitinas-Gogos

Lemon trees have had a bumper crop this year from all the rains we've had and my neighbour gave me a whole box of them. The Greek culinary experience gives us many recipes with lemons, such as avgolemono. Lemons are used on just about everything fried, winter green salads, lemon baked chicken and lemon baked potatoes, and also sweet preserves.

It has always puzzled me why we don't preserve lemons the way the North Africans do and I can only come up with the conclusion that: Greece has plenty of them, and lemon trees need water to make abundant juicy fruit. North Africa does not have these conditions, so I will hazard a guess that conditions create a need to preserve the mighty lemon when it is not readily available because of climatic reasons. So having been handed a mighty box of lemons, I decided to make my version of Moroccan preserved lemons. It is a reasonably easy recipe, it just needs some organization in the kitchen, as you must sterilise the jars and lids. If any reader wants to know how to do this, please write to me at dora@neoskosmos.com.au

PRESERVED LEMONS

INGREDIENTS

9 - 10 firm lemons (thick-skinned are best for preserving)

1 cup sea salt

3 - 4 cinnamon sticks

4 teaspoons coriander seeds 1½ black pepper corns 40 whole cloves (approximate)

7 cups water

METHOD

1. Wash the lemons, scrubbing lightly with a hard brush.

2. Fill a large saucepan with water and bring to the boil. Add the whole lemons and cook for 3 minutes.

3. Remove the lemons with a slotted spoon and plunge into cold water.

4. Empty and rinse out saucepan and combine water, salt, cinnamon sticks, coriander seeds, and peppercorns in same saucepan and bring this mixture to a boil.

5. Turn off the heat and stand aside.

6. Pat the cooled lemons dry.

7. Look at the lemon as if in quarters, as you will cut it later.

8. In each quarter, pierce with a skewer 3 holes in a row and place a clove in each hole.

9. Now cut into quarters.

10. Put the lemon quarters into sterilised jars.

11. Reheat the spice mixture to just boiling.

12. Pour on top of lemons, tucking a cinnamon stick in each and make sure that all the spices are evenly distributed. Seal with sterilised lid.

NOTE: This amount makes three jars, approximately 18 cm high x 10 cm diameter. Let stand for six weeks before using. Once opened, the lemons will keep in fridge for several months.

Kali Orexi!

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Comments

Hi Dora In Macedonia sixty years ago Lemons were a most treasured item. The winter icy conditions did not allow Lemons to grow, except in pots which we brought indoors in winter. Many an hour we would sit looking at the potted Lemon tree, daring not to touch it should we damage a flower. The children in the neighbourhood would come and sit around the precious Lemon tree almost encouraging it to grow. Lemons and Oranges were availuble in the market place, but they were a special occassion fruit, or, gifts. At Christmas your "Nona" would give you an Orange. On leaving Macedonia for Australia, we arrived by overnight train in Athens and travelled by a Carriage pulled by a black Mare to the bus station, where we were going to Sparta. Unloading our two large suitcases and a few other small bags, next to a little donkey cart full of fruit. We knew enough of the world not to do or say anything but savour the smell of the fruit, and imagine the taste of a sweet orange or apple. My twenty five year old Mother could not help herself, when she heard someone ask the price of the Lemons, and she heard how cheap they were, she bought four. I looked at her disapprovingly, and she replied we need them for the Bus trip. The Lemon smell will stop you four children getting "car sick". I was hoping she would exchange them for Oranges, but I was too shy amongst the people gathering around us to even say a word. On the bus to Sparta, on the long winding Goat track, we children took turns to holding the brown paper bag with four Lemons and smelling them, and, putting our tiny hands in the paper bag to stroke them as if they were fragile little animals. My Mother looked them as if they were precious jewels. No matter how hard my Mother tried to grow a Lemon tree, the inner suburbs of Melbourne would never be kind to her. A year before she died, at a young age, her Lemon tree died and I caught her with tears in her eyes, touching the sad leaves. I was shocked when she refused my offer to replace it with full grown new tree, she said she will never live to see it flower. When I visit my Mothers grave on a hill over looking the Macedonian Plain I allways place some bright skinned Lemons on the white marble slab covering the grave.
Submitted by Romios on Fri, 2011-10-28 20:52.

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