Farmers Market Bounty and Preserved Lemons

Here's this week's produce bounty from out tiny farmers' market - all organic this week:

Fresh English peas (so sweet!)

Red spring onions

cauliflower

artichoke

strawberries (some missing!)

baby spinach

fava beans

You may remember last week I got all those organic lemons - here they are again:




Those are preserved lemons, traditionally used in North African cooking. Sam at Becks and Posh recently posted a Preserved Meyer Lemons recipe which I almost followed here (I just left out the cinnamon stick and peppercorns and doubled the coriander). Basically, they're cut lemons with large amounts of salt rubbed in, that are left to cure for 30 days. They are awfully easy to prepare. My biggest challenge was figuring out how I should sterilize my mason jar. Everywhere I looked, there were instructions to use a boiling water canner (which I don't have, never having canned ). I ended up boiling the jar and lid in water in my soup pot for 25 minutes. Hopefully, that did the trick.

So what do you do with the lemons once they're preserved?
It's actually the chopped peel that is used according to Claudia Roden, who includes a recipe in her book Invitation to Mediterranean Cooking and uses it to garnish a Spicy Carrot Puree. Deborah Madison suggests using them in salads and tangines. Her recipe in Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone states you should store the lemons in a cool dark place or in the fridge while they cure (most I've seen say at room temperature - comments?).
To my knowledge, I've never had a dish with preserved lemons so I look forward to tasting and experimenting with these in June.

Here's a few recipes I've found so far that look good to me:

Fettuccine with Preserved Lemon and Roasted Garlic at Apartment Therapy:Kitchen.

Artichoke & Ricotta Dumplings with Preserved Lemon Sauce at Food & Wine

Artichoke & Broad Bean Salad with Preserved Lemon at the BBC.

If you have a winning vegetarian recipe using preserved lemons, tell us about it in the comments! Cheers!

FOOD + VEGETARIAN+LEMONS