Preserved Lemons

Keeping a kitchen garden is not just about growing edible plants; far much more time goes into storing, preserving and using up your produce. I have preserved lemons and limes before in the traditional way of cutting them into 4, ¾’s of the way through each piece of fruit, stuffing them with rock salt, placing them in a glass jar filled with salt and covering them with lemon or lime juice. Then waiting a few months till the liquid turns beautiful amber gold before I use them. Sometimes I think that they are too salty and soak them before I use them, often I don’t wait so long and turn them, especially if they are limes into wonderful Indian pickles, which seem to disappear pretty fast around here. Watching an old episode of Food Safari on TV I was inspired to try this recipe as it used a different method and a lot less salt.

Preserved Lemons
Fresh ripe lemons or limes
Sea salt
8 cardamom pods
6 small red birds eye chilies.

METHOD
Prick through the skins of the fruit using a sharp knife, place in a large bowl and add enough water to cover the fruit, weigh the fruit down by placing a plate on the top of them. Change the water twice a day for the next two days. This is to remove the bitterness from the lemons. On the third day rinse off the fruit and cut them into 4 segments ¾’s of the way through. Stuff lightly with sea salt, place the fruit and any remaining juice in a clean glass jar. Add cardamom and chilies and pour over boiling water. Leave for 3 months before using.

I did have my suspicions while I was making these that there was not enough salt to preserve the lemons as they were not stored in a strong brine. After a week a small amount of mold began to grow on the top of the water. I added 4 tablespoons of salt and had no further problems. As yet we have not tried the lemons but the fragrance with the cardamom is wonderful.