Grow It, Catch It, Cook It

It’s winter in Perth, Western Australia and this year we are having a really good lemon and orange harvest. I am always on a look for ways to preserve any surplus and a good friend of mine suggested I try making preserved lemons. She won me over with ‘they go great in Tagines’ but she didn’t mention how amazing they look in the jars.

I used lots of salt but I am still going to chuck them in the fridge it after they sit in a cool, dry cupboard for a a few months.

Note: Follow your nose, if it smells bad don’t eat them.

Here are the steps I took:

1. I cleaned my chosen citrus with a scourer and rinsed them off (I used the last of the limes, some fresh lemons and a mix of lemons and oranges to make three jars respectively).
2. I then took each piece of fruit, cut the ends off and quartered them (large fruit got cut in half again).
3. I put 1/2 Tbsp of table salt in the bottom of each of my jars (pre-sterilised with boiling water), put a layer of fruit, pushed that down with a wooden spoon and then added another 1/2 Tbsp salt.
4. I repeated the fruit, press and salt cycle until the jar was full to the brim.
5. I then added freshly squeezed juice to the jar, added 1 Tbsp salt and popped on a sterilised lid.
6. A few taps on the kitchen bench to get all the air bubbles to the top and I moved onto the next type of citrus.
7. Then all the jars went into a cupboard for a few months. I haven’t had any jars explode on me but putting them in a cupboard or box stops an entire room being coated in glass and rotten food.

I will let you know how they go 🙂

(update: they were amazing and I even gave a few jars away)

(update 2: I couldn’t point you at a better website for how to use your preserved citrus then this https://www.bonappetit.com/recipes/slideshow/preserved-lemon-slideshow

Enjoy,

PK

Here are more preserving food ideas and uses for citrus: