Lemon Confit or Preserved lemons

If ever there was a case to prove the alchemic effects of salt it is this.

The salt transforms the bitter white pith into something palatable, renders the skin translucent and keeps the lemons from rotting – magic indeed.Because the salt renders the lemons less bitter the resulting skin, once rinsed, can also be used in sweets.

I first “discovered” preserved lemons by way of Alastair Little in his inspirational “Food of the Sun” and indeed it is his method I always follow although I have adapted slightly for a smaller jar. Since then I have lived in Turkey and travelled in Morocco where I could taste and see at first hand all the different ways of using these precious orbs. I was particularly taken with the “mini” preserved lemons that I bought in Morocco which I used halved in tagines and to stuff mackerel (the lemon works great with oily fish).

Uses

I chop them very fine and add to couscous, salads and soupe. I use them in dips and pestos where I want a lot of lemon flavour and no bitterness-in particular in a roast red pepper and confit lemon dip. They are a vital ingredient in tagines and they add an intensity to roast chicken. Best of all when you have run short of lemons you know you always have some in the store cupboard. Generally most recipes call for using the rind only (you just pull out the flesh easily) but as long as there are no pips and depending on the recipe I often use them flesh and all.

Ingredients – for 1 x 500ml kilner jar

Fine salt to cover and surround all the lemon pieces – approx 200g (I find it encourages less air pockets)
3 lemons well scrubbed and cut into quarters. If you have time to pick out pips then its worth it.

Cover the base of the jar with approx 1cm of salt. Place your lemons in trying to arrange them all to really fill the jar but allowing space between them for salt. Old fashioned earthenware crocks are ideal because the salt does corrode the metal clips on a kilner jar and I have quite a few distressed looking jars to prove this. Keep alternating with salt and lemons until you have squished in as much as you can. You do not want any air pockets as air = mould.

Put the lid on the jar and give a good shake. Leave to settle for an hour or so and them top up with salt. If you are a bit unsure add a little water to make sure absolutely no air.

For the next week give the jars a shake and turn them this way and that. The salt will suck the juice from the lemons and a briny lemony liquid will be created. Once the salt is all liquid they then need to sit for a few days. They are ready when the skin is translucent – generally 7-10 days but depends on the salt, the lemon variety and how big the lemons were. A month is ideal really.

White Chocolate Panna Cotta with Strawberry & Basil Salsa

“the perfect panna cotta should wobble like a woman’s breast”

This was the edict of an Italian silver haired chef handed down when I dared to go discuss in the kitchen and ask for his recipe in a small hilltop town outside Rome. I did not argue nor press on detail (silicone? age specific wobbles?) because it was obvious that all things round and wobbly were a good thing in his book. Now if metaphors of the flesh are a bit too much for a humble milk jelly then just know that when pushed it should react like a jelly and it should feel like a delicate custard that melts in the mouth.

The turned out version:

One word of warning, while making panna cotta is simplicity itself turning them out can be nerve wracking – especially after a few drinks at a dinner party. The cheating solution is to serve in the glass you made them in but if you want to turn out then lower the mould you have used (a rounded cappucino cup with no angles/nooks and crannies for the panna cotta to adhere to when you are trying to turn it out is really still the best thing) into a deep tray or bowl of boiling water for 2 minutes. This melts the gelatine on the outside. Lift out very carefully. Skim around the edge with a small knife. Place a serving plate over the top and invert. Now decorate your masterpiece.

So now …back to the Panna Cotta…

Panna Cotta or “cooked cream” is another one of those oh so simple Italian dishes that relies on simple but good ingredients. Its essentially a cream jelly that is set with gelatine. It can be embellished and enriched by adding white chocolate which means that you need a little less gelatine. I like to do this because I think it has a greater “melt in your mouth” feel.

Ingredients – White Chocolate Panna Cotta – 6 servings

500ml smantana dulce 30%-32% (heavy cream or double cream)
150ml lapte 3.5% (milk)
100g ciocolata alba (white chocolate broken into pieces)
25g zahar (sugar)
10g gelatine + 100ml apa rece (gelatine powder plus 100ml cold water)
1 tsp vanilie (vanilla extract)

I’ve written the Romanian first because its quite tricky to get the right cream.

How To

First dissolve your gelatine in the cold water – it will kind of go spongy and absorb the water. I like to wisk it so it kind of gets a little frothy and this way I know that its properly dissolved.

Heat the cream, sugar and milk on the stove until just boiling but be careful not to burn it and create brown bits of “stuff” floating in it.

Remove from the heat!

Throw in the white chocolate until it melts and is incorporated – dont stir until it has melted. Now add the vanilla.

Now give it a good whisk

Pour into cappuccino cups and place in the refrigerator (preferably overnight) (if you have other strong smelling food in the fridge then cover with cling film because dairy products absorb smells and odours like sponges)

Strawberry & Basil Salsa

The amount of fruit depends really if you want a fruit salsa dish with panna cotta or a panna cotta with a fruit salsa…I reckon 1 kg of strawberies makes a decent amount of salsa for 6. and what is left over blend into a smoothie.

Take half the fruit and cut into small cubes approx 1cm across.

The other half blend to a puree.

Shred basil leaves fairly finely as you dont actually want large leaves in this salsa but neither do you want the basil to be pureed because it would change the bright red colour into a dingy brown.

Add a little lemon juice if you like things tart.

Spoon the salsa on the panna cotta either in the glass or turned out and serve immediately.

The panna cotta can be made up to two days ahead. the salsa is best made fresh. If you are really in a rush skip the fiddly cube bits and just create a puree.

Sunshine Whole Orange & almond cake with lemon curd

This is the kind of cake that I like. It’s not all fussed up with cream and decoration, it uses entire fruit skin and all, it is not over-sweet, it uses nuts in place of flour, it improves after a couple of days – in short it is more than the sum of its parts. The cake recipe is adapted from a Claudia Roden recipe for a Sephardic Jewish orange cake and wows with its bitter orange/marmalade taste and for sensitive souls it happens to be gluten free too.

I add polenta for a bit of crunch and the juice the oranges were cooked in. I also adapted the method a little to make a lighter cake so I make a “mousse” or foam with eggs and sugar as if making a genoise. It lends itself well to all kinds of improvs and ideas – in the picture above I added fennel seeds to the mix, decorated with some confit lemon and lime (I ran out of lemons) and sandwiched with a lemon curd.

In Greece I have made it with “mastika” crystals (the incense like flavour I love). Its fabulous with saffron, great with crushed coriander seeds and it marries well with a chocolate ganache. I’ve also added half cocoa in place of polenta to create a gorgeous moist chocolate orange cake.

Nerdy Stuff

Before the “How To”, a quick word on quantities and a quick math lesson. When assessing recipes and wondering if your battered old cake tin will accommodate the cake mix, whip out your calculator/ flex your excel skills! The recipe below is for a 20 cm circular tin… Say the sides are 4cm (and this is a mousse cake method so it will not rise on cooking)…we need the volume, so first the base area ..that’s pi x radius squared ie 3.142x10x10 = 314 cm squared. And now the volume …multiply by the height…so we have 314x 4 = 1257 cm cubed of cake mix. So if you had a square tin that was 18cm x 18cm x 4cm that would give you a volume of 1296 cm cubed and work out fine.

INGREDIENTS for a circular 20cm cake tin

1 orange plus the juice it was boiled in (I’ve sometimes boiled them dry and when that happens as long as you haven’t cremated the thing its fine to add a little boiled water – approx 100ml)

3 Eggs

125g Ground almonds (I blitz them in a blender and I often use almonds with the skins on)

65g polenta (“malai”) or 35g cocoa powder/ 30g polenta if making the chocolate version

120g Sugar (I have used 100ml honey or agave syrup but you need to increase the almonds a little as this is quite a liquid mix to begin with)

HOW TO

Wash and boil the orange unpeeled, in water to cover for 1 hour or until it is very soft. Let cool then cut open, remove the pips and turn into a puree in a food processor adding the water that is left from the cooking pan – approx. 100ml of cooking juice.

Beat the eggs and sugar in a large bowl until they are foamy. Really do keep whisking until they leave a trail from the beater.

Fold in carefully, so as to just amalgamate the ingredients but not knock out all the air from the mixture. Pour into a cake tin with a removable base that you have buttered or oiled.

Bake in a preheated moderately hot 160C convection/ 180C non convection oven for about 1 hour. Check by inserting a skewer – it should come out clean. If it is still very wet, leave it in the oven for a little longer. Cool in the tin before turning out. (I once was in a hurry and turned it out when it was still hot, burnt my fingers and dropped the entire creation on the floor…so please people! “do as I say not as I do.”)

Improvs and Ideas

It does make great small cakes and cup cakes. I am sure a lemon version needs to be created and I am toying with a pink grapefruit idea.

To confit some lemons just slice them relatively finely and cover with half sugar and half water. Bring to the boil and then simmer on the minimum heat very very slowly until they are cooked, soft and have a translucent quality about them indicated that they have absorbed the syrup.