Lemon trees laden with their winter crop,
boughs drooping under the weight of many hued lemons: dark
green, lighter green becoming suffused with yellow, vibrant
yellow bursting with life, then as they go unpicked and overripe
a flush of orange seeps into the knobbly fruit. Until I came to
South Africa lemons came from a shop: smooth, uniform yellow
skins all year round. Now I have learned to
appreciate their seasonal bounty, struggling to use up all the
fruit in winter, hoarding away the squeezed juice of the excess
lemons in the freezer for summer, when the lemons must come from
the shop again and are more expensive and less juicy.
This is the time to think up a hundred and one ways to use a
lemon, to dig out all the recipes requiring a lot of lemons:
Lemon Curd, Lemon Cake, Three Fruit Marmalade with grapefruit
and lemons to balance the sweetness of the oranges. Jane
Grigson’s Fruit Book has a wonderful sounding Lemon Tart recipe,
that I can’t wait to try, it sounds like the sort of marvel
you’d get from a good French
patisserie.
Roast chicken can be kept moist and succulent as it roasts, with
a lemon stuffed into its cavity. Pierce the lemon’s skin a few
times to let the juice seep through, but put it in whole. A
spritz of lemon juice on green vegetables such as broccoli and
spinach, lifts the flavour and replaces some of the vitamin C
lost in cooking too. I use up lots of lemons making jam in the
strawberry season in
spring and early summer. Lemon juice is an essential addition to
the soft fruit, to add the pectin that makes it set. Most of my
freezer stock of juice will go on that.
On hot summer’s days the lemon comes into its own. Refreshing,
iced, home-made Lemonade garnished with mint to slake your
thirst – much healthier than commercial fizzy drinks, despite
the sugar. It is additive-free, with loads of Vitamin C and far
more delicious than anything that comes in a can.
Recipe for Lemonade
3 large lemons
sugar
soda water
Remove the peel very thinly from the lemons, taking just the
yellow zest and leaving all the white pith. A potato peeler
works well for this. Put it all into a heavy bottomed pan and
cover with 2cm/1” water. Cover with a lid and warm over a very
low heat. Do not let the water quite boil or it will bring out
the bitterness of the peel. Once the water is strongly
flavoured, take off the heat and
allow to cool. Strain it into a jug. Squeeze the juice from the
lemons and add to the jug, then stir in sugar to taste. It
should be sweet and strong flavoured, as you will dilute it to
serve. Serve with soda water added, if you like a fizz, or plain
iced water and garnish with some slices of lemon and sprigs of
mint. The undiluted lemonade keeps for several days in the
fridge.
Lemons are a great health boost in winter, adding essential
Vitamin C to the diet, to help fight off colds and flu. They
also help expel mucus, so are excellent for chesty colds and
coughs. My son, who has a tendency to asthma, has a cup of hot
honey and lemon every morning, which he luckily likes – 1
teaspoon of good raw honey and a tablespoon of lemon juice with
hot water poured over – which
helps keep his chest clear in winter.
I recently learned a housekeeping tip from Morocco: use a lemon
to clean copper and brass. Just rub the cut edge over brass
bedknobs or those wonderful Moroccan door plates to bring up a
shine, then buff with a soft cloth. The kids thought that was a
great idea and now keep running off with half squeezed lemons to
polish the spare room bedknobs!
Copyright 2006 Kit Heathcock
