Consuming Passions: Preserved Lemons
It’s peak citrus season. In this latest contribution to our Consuming Passions series, chef, food writer and fermenter Clare Heal says it’s the perfect time to make preserved lemons and shares some of her favourite ways to use them.
By Clare Heal
I teach a popular fermentation workshop in which attendees make preserved lemons alongside sauerkraut, kimchi and dill-pickled cucumbers. I get a lot of questions about how to use the lemons. Some people tell me they bought a jar for a recipe once but never finished it and are anxious about what to do with the ones they’ve made.
It makes me sad to think of all that potential deliciousness - all that salty-sour complexity - sitting unused in the nation’s fridges when it could be meeting its culinary destiny in tagines, salads, pasta dishes and dips. Not to mention curries, vegetable sides and even cakes.
So I have made it my mission to demystify preserved lemons for people, not just teaching how they are made but how to cook with them too. Moroccan cuisine is perhaps the obvious place to start exploring but, as we’ll find out, by no means the only road to go down.
History and science
The earliest recorded recipe for preserved lemons is by Ibn Jumay who was a Jewish Egyptian physician at the court of 12th century sultan Saladin. Jumay’s treatise On Lemon, It’s Drinking and Use instructs readers to take “lemons that are fully ripe and of bright yellow colour” and to “cut them open without severing the two halves and introduce salt into the split” before placing them in jar, submerging with lemon juice and leaving for “at least 40 days”.
The exact same method is still widely used today. Claudia Roden is usually credited with introducing the technique to the UK although Robert May has a one-line recipe “to pickle lemon” in his 1660 work The Accomplisht Cook and Hannah Glasse describes a more recognisable version in The Art of Cookery Made Plain and Easy from 1747.
So what’s happening when lemon meets salt? As Harold McGee outlines in On Food and Cooking the salt inhibits harmful bacteria whilst allowing lactic acid bacteria to convert the sugar in the fruit into lactic acid. So there’s a sort of double pickle effect going on: the citric acid of the lemons’ own juice, joined by the lactic acid created by the bacteria.
Because of the high salt levels (usually between 10-20% of the weight of the lemons) this lactic acid fermentation is slow and not as active as in, say, a sauerkraut or kimchi. The changes in taste and texture are also due to enzymatic action breaking down the pectin and oils in the lemon peel, leading to it becoming soft, losing its bitterness and gaining umami notes. Transforming, as McGee says, “from bright and sharp to rich and rounded”.
Making your own
Ibn Jumay’s method has survived more than 800 years so is obviously a keeper. But other (more recent) recipes are available. Robert Carrier in his influential 1987 book Taste of Morocco has a recipe which he classifies as “easy” but which still sounds quite a faff, necessitating steeping the fruit in water and an elaborate scoring process. But his description of the finished product is wonderful. Carrier writes: “You’ll find that the salty, oily pickling juice is honey thick and highly flavoured.” Reading that sentence it’s impossible to deny his assertion that preserved lemons bring “a different, pungent, even ‘sexy’ taste”. Well, quite.
Swedish fermentation expert Asa Simonsson has simple instructions that echo Jumay but she advises keeping the lemons for at least a year. Lisa Atwood boils them first and Nik Sharma offers a classic and a quick method and notes that traditionally “the lemons are not cut all the way but in a crisscross pattern that holds the entire lemon together. I’ve tried this in a few different ways and haven’t noticed any difference in taste.”
I concur. I tend to just quarter my lemons, squeezing their juice into whatever jar I am using, dropping the peel in after and adding a tablespoon of flaky sea salt for every lemon (plus any peppercorns, coriander seeds, star anise, cloves, cardamom pods etc. that I might fancy). I layer up like this until the jar is full, add a weight to keep the lemon quarters under the brine, and leave them to their own devices for at least a month.
Home-made vs shop-bought
If it was Claudia Roden who introduced home cooks to preserved lemons, it was Yotam Ottolenghi who really popularised the things. Yotam (I can call him Yotam right? We’ve never met but, as fellow preserved lemon enthusiasts I’m sure we’d get on) is likely the reason you can find a jar of preserved lemons in most large supermarkets these days.
Beldi lemons
The most widely available type are made from Beldi lemons, a small, thin-skinned variety that are usually brined whole. Many recipes instruct you to finely mince the aromatic skin and discard the pulp (which doesn’t tend to be so interestingly flavoured). If you made your own lemons it’s likely you used something larger and thicker-skinned than a Beldi (hence the quartering in most recipes). In this case one quarter is roughly equivalent to a small whole lemon and I would discard the pips but finely chop the pulp along with the peel.
Even better, rather than mincing each quarter to order—a slightly fiddly job—once my lemons are soft, I make purée which is a hugely useful ingredient to have on hand. When the lemons are ready, tip the whole contents of the jar into a large bowl. One by one, run your thumb over the pulpy side to remove any pips. Put each de-pipped quarter in the bowl of a food processor and, once you’ve checked them all, whizz to an even-textured purée. Put this back in the original jar and keep it in the fridge.
Cooking with Preserved Lemons
Moroccan tagines might be the best-known way to use preserved lemons and a multitude of recipes exist. Robert Carrier’s tagine of lamb with green peas and preserved lemon is a delicious mixture of rich and fresh.
Other recipes often partner preserved lemons with olives, their similar-but-distinct flavours dancing beautifully together. Bethany Kehdy’s chicken recipe makes good use of this rapport, as does a vegetarian version from Nicola Graimes in which root vegetables soak up the tangy juices.
But don’t stop at tagines! Indian lemon pickle is made with a very similar method to that for preserved lemons. So it’s no surprise that preserved lemons also make a great addition to curry, as in Nisha Katona’s mansoor dal.
Lemon Pickle from The Food of India by Priya Wickramasinghe and Carol Selva Rajah
With the same citric brightness as lemons but an extra layer of luxurious mystery, preserved lemons have the ability to make any dish containing them feel a bit fancy, including a weeknight pasta supper. Combined with feta cheese and cherry tomatoes, Christine Mansfield’s dish comes together in the time it takes some tagliatelle to cook. Or knock up fusion king Peter Gordon’s store cupboard special with artichokes and halloumi.
They bring class and sophistication to the simplest of meals. This mezze from Greek cook Aglaia Kremezi is one of my all-time favourites. Carrots cooked in orange juice and given a tangy lift by preserved lemons, it’s so simple but so delicious. I've never fed it to anyone who wasn't immediately won over. Liana Krissof uses preserved lemons in a simple fennel salad which by is refreshing in summer or brightening in winter. Nik Sharma’s green bean dish with creme fraiche and crispy shallots was conceived as a Thanksgiving side but would be welcome on my table at any time of year.
For something heartier Kumud Ganghi’s roast potatoes are a winner, the lemon mixing with garlic and chilli for an unexpected kick.
If you don’t fancy cooking a whole meal, preserved lemons are your friend in elevating snacky bits, particularly dips, to a whole new level.
Christine Sahadi Whelan uses them to jazz up hummus and the double act with olives appears again in a warm tapenade from Ivy Manning.
Hummus with Moroccan Spices and Preserved Lemon from Flavors of the Sun by Christine Sahadi Whelan
Warm Olive Tapenade with Preserved Lemon from Crackers & Dips by Ivy Manning
I love adding a tablespoonful of my preserved lemon purée to a liberal splash of olive oil along with a little crushed garlic. Stirred into Greek yoghurt this makes a wonderful accompaniment for crudités or flatbread and everyone always asks for the recipe. I’m almost apologetic when I tell them how simple it is.
And don’t forget sweets. The salty complexity of preserved lemon can work in desserts too. There aren’t many sweet recipes that call for them explicitly but try substituting preserved lemon purée for lemon zest in your favourite cake or dessert recipe.
There are many variations on the famous "boiled orange cake" but you can make your own lemony version, replacing the two whole oranges from the original with two lemons and 100g of preserved lemon puree.
As I tell my workshop attendees: "Anywhere you can use a lemon, you can use a preserved lemon".
About the author
Clare Heal is a classically trained chef and self-taught fermentarian. She runs Sycamore Smyth, a one-woman catering company and cookery school in London as well as teaching popular fermentation workshops at the Dusty Knuckle and the Garden Museum in London and full-day, field-to-ferment courses in Oxfordshire.
Subscribe to her Substack: In Good Taste
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