How to Use Preserved Lemons

It’s easy enough to talk about the wonderful word of preserved lemons. But after waiting on a vat of salted lemon wedges for a month or longer, now what? How do you get from salty pith to citrus nirvana (or at least to something better than salty pith)?

There are many paths one can take. But the first thing to do is to give those lemon wedges a  good, hearty rinse to remove excess salt.

You may go about doing this in two ways. You can soak the preserved lemon wedges in multiple changes of water over the course of a couple hours or overnight. You’ll need to change the water around 5 times. Or you can run the wedges under a stream of cool water for 15 minutes, which ensures that the lemon isn’t sitting in very salty water.

Side note: only soak or rinse the amount of preserved lemon wedges you will need in the short term. Submerged in the brine and refrigerated, the remaining lemon wedges will keep for a year.

Next, slice the pith away from the rind. Most people discard the pith, but in the Vie cookbook we use it to make lemon butter.

Finally, mince the rind. Taste it; it should still be salty, but also perfume-y, like  lemon oil. It imparts concentrated lemon flavor, but without acidity.

So now what? Use it. The other day, I had lunch at Gather in Berkeley. After sampling a healthful salad comprising blanched lacinato kale, roasted parsnips and carrots, and shaved onion, I thought I’d try my own version. This time, though, I’d add preserved lemon to the vinaigrette.

Back in the kitchen, I got to work, tearing kale leaves off their stem, blanching them for a minute or so in boiling, salted water, and letting them drain on a baking sheet. I shaved 1 large shallot and soaked the slices in inexpensive red wine vinegar with minced preserved lemon. I sliced carrots, then browned them in a pan with olive oil and half of the soaked shallots. So far, so good.

After squeezing out the excess water from the kale, I put it on a platter with the carrots and crisped shallots. I whisked in a glug of olive oil to the vinegar-shallot-lemon concoction, then tossed the whole mess into the kale, mixing it well with my (clean) hands. I finished the salad with a few grindings of black pepper and gratings of pecorino pepato, a pecorino cheese embedded with black peppercorns. A late addition: crushed almonds. The following snapshot, while homely as heck, illustrates the general idea. Verdict: While I might add more carrots and shallots next time, this salad is a winning way to use preserved lemons.

Tagged as: ingredients, making it work, mise en place, recipettes