Preserved lemon: use the rind
Lemons get packed in salt and forgotten for weeks. Salt pulls out their juice, the juice turns into brine, and the rind goes tender, mellow and much less bitter.
Count it as salt and lemon in one
Rinse off the surface brine, then mince the rind and skip most of the pulp. The lemon is already salty, so hold back on salt elsewhere and taste first.
Test yourself
Questions from the interactive lesson, with the answer and the why.
What does the salt do to the lemons in the jar?
It pulls juice out, which becomes a brine around the fruit. Salt draws water out of the fruit, and the juice mixes with it to make brine.
True or false: In most preserved lemon recipes, the softened rind is the part you use.
True. The softened rind is tender and strongly lemony, so most recipes use it.
Fill the blank: Because preserved lemon is packed in salt, cut back the added ___ in the recipe.
Because preserved lemon is packed in salt, cut back the added salt in the recipe. The lemon already carries salt from the brine, so taste before adding more.
What went wrong? You mince preserved lemon rind into a stew, then add the full spoonful of salt the recipe calls for. The stew tastes harshly salty.
The lemon already carried salt, so the added salt overshot. Preserved rind is salty from the brine, so taste first, then adjust.
A braise will simmer for two hours and needs a lemon flavor that lasts. Which do you pick?
Minced preserved lemon rind. Its mellow, salty lemon flavor holds up in long cooking.