Thanks for joining me again for the last of my citrus series of blogs. Now that we’ve discussed how to get the best from your trees, it’s time to enjoy the abundance of your harvest with my:
Recipes from Lemons
(sorry, I know this is a bad rhyme for heaven but lemon recipes truly are heaven in my eyes.)
Nothing refreshes me like lemonade and soda water – beautiful for springtime lunches.
1. Squeeze your lemons and measure the quantity. I find about 6 lemons is usually enough to give me a bottle of cordial. Refrigerate during the next step.
2. Measure equal quantities of water and sugar as your lemon juice from step one (eg 1 cup water, 1 cup sugar) and bring to the boil for about 5 minutes. I usually peel some skin from the lemons I’ve just squeezed and chuck that into the boiling water and sugar mix.
3. Turn off the heat, pop on a lid and let the sugar syrup cool.
4. Once the syrup is cool, add the lemon juice and bottle into sterilised bottles and store in the fridge. Because of the high sugar content, this syrup lasts for a couple of weeks in the fridge without sterilising your bottles but I usually sterilise just to be sure. Of course if you’re planning a lunch party, it will probably all be gone by the end of the day anyway so sterilising would be a waste of time.
I find that it can take kids a while to get used to the tang of proper lemonade syrup because they’re so used to the store-bought stuff, but I think it’s worth persisting. At least there are no preservatives in this version.
Lemon Curd
Eating this recipe sometimes brings a tear to my eye as it reminds me of my Granny so much. So simple too – good old fashioned comfort eating. This isn’t her recipe, it’s one I found on taste.com but it’s the best, easiest and most reliable I’ve found.
Ingredients:
2 eggs, plus 2 egg yolks
3/4 cup of caster sugar (165g)
1/3 cup of chilled unsalted butter (80g)
zest and juice of 2 lemons
Method
Whisk whole eggs, yolks and sugar in a saucepan until smooth, then place pan over a low heat. Add the butter, juice and zest and whisk continuously until thickened. Strain through a sieve into a sterilised jar.
Use the freshest eggs and lemons for best results that will last a couple of weeks in the fridge.
I find that I use lemons so much in my kitchen and have many sweet and savoury dishes for using them up. I’m always on the lookout for new favourites though, so if you’re reading this and have a recipe to share, please do so below.
Thanks again for reading everyone, and don’t forget to send me any citrus questions you may have.
(All photographs courtesy of food24.com)