Hungry In Hogtown

World's best Jewish pork rib recipe

 Oy!  I'm just as stumped as you.

Where my lovely Jewish grandmother learned to cooked such wonderful pork ribs is beyond me.  All I know is that this dish was one of my favourite meals as a kid, especially when it was served with a big bowl of Caesar salad.

As the holidays approached and winter set in, I found myself thinking back to precisely these dishes, the comfort food of my youth, so I called my grandmother and asked her for the recipes.  Then I waited.  And waited.  Finally, with "The Great Turkey Burden" of Christmas now history, I could turn my focus to the ribs I'd been craving for weeks.

Morton Thompson is a sick bastard!

Gobble, gobble!  Canadian Thanksgiving is near, so what better time to revisit one of Hungry In Hogtown's first posts, Thompson Turkey.  If you're dreading the usual turkey dinner this weekend, or are just looking for a kitchen challenge, why not give this a try?  If you do take the plunge, please let us know how it goes.  Happy Thanksgiving!

I've never been one to shy away from a challenge, especially when that challenge involves food.  Several years ago I found just such a challenge, and this Christmas I finally organized myself enough to try it.  Now, I'm not talking any ordinary challenge; no, I'm talking ten hours of work, pain, frustration, and ultimate disappointment at the hands of one of gastronomy's most sadistic cooking traditions.  I'm talking Thompson turkey.

I first came across this gastronomic oddity several years ago in Jeffrey Steingarten's wonderful book, The Man Who Ate Everything, one of the most enjoyable, and useful, food books I've ever had the pleasure to read.  Steingarten identifies roast turkey as one of North America's least satisfying culinary traditions and concludes its meat is "nearly always bland and stringy."

I couldn't agree more.  I've enjoyed turkey, sure, but when I review the roster of edible fowl -- from chicken, to duck, to quail -- I find them all immensely more enjoyable, regardless of preparation, than the ubiquitous Thanksgiving and Christmas roast turkey.  Let's be honest, is there another meat that even remotely approaches the dryness and tastelessness of a turkey breast?

Steingarten's quest to find a better turkey eventually led him to Morton Thompson's eponymous bird.  There is no easy way to describe a Thompson turkey, so I'll let Thompson explain it himself:

As it cooks, it will alarm you. The paste will begin to turn black very early in the process, but don't worry about it until the end. "You will think, 'My God! I have ruined it.' Be calm. Take a tweezer and pry loose the paste coating. It will come off readily. Beneath this burnt, harmless, now worthless shell the bird will be golden and dark brown, succulent, giddymaking with wild aromas, crisp and crunchable and crackling. The meat beneath this crazing panorama of skin will be wet, juice will spurt from it in tiny fountains as high as the handle of the fork plunged into it; the meat will be white, crammed with mocking flavor, delirious with things that rush over your palate and are drowned and gone as fast as you can swallow; cut a little of it with a spoon, it will spread on bread as eagerly and readily as soft Wurst. You do not have to be a carver to eat this turkey; speak harshly to it and it will fall apart.

Paste? Tweezers? Juice as high as the handle of a fork?  As if that weren't incentive enough, Steingarten described the turkey as "the most flavorful and moist that you will ever taste."  I had to try this.

The first obstacle to making a Thompson's turkey is shopping for all the ingredients.  The stuffing alone contains twenty-nine ingredients, many of which may have been staples in Harriet Nelson's pantry (crushed pineapple?), but certainly aren't the kind of things I keep stocked in my cupboards.  Moreover, the turkey itself has to be extremely large, at least sixteen pounds.  Our eighteen pound, free range, organic bird was more than $70, which is a lot to pay for the cooking equivalent of jumping the shark.

The night prior to cooking the turkey, my wife and I spent almost an hour prepping ingredients for the stuffing.  The next morning, I awoke at seven, to pull the turkey out of the fridge to let it come to temperature.  An hour later I was up for good, finishing the prep work in a mild stupor.  Two hours later, I finally had the stuffing ready. Now, most people would say that five pounds of stuffing made with pork, veal, onions, pineapple, apple, water chestnuts, preserved ginger, and no fewer than fifteen herbs and spices constitutes a meal on its own. Not Morton Thompson; for him it's just step one.

Having stuffed the bird, I then had to confront trussing the damned thing.  I hate trussing, and in this case, it's about as enjoyable as, ohhh... a night of bondage and discipline with Big Bird.  Nonetheless, truss I did.  And sew.  By the time I was done, the bird resembled a victim of some strange dungeon ritual involving an immensely skilled dominatrix.

After almost another three hours of prep, at 10:39 I finally put the turkey into my screamingly hot oven in order to properly brown its skin.  By 11:00, my wife was opening every window in our apartment and frantically fanning the air around our smoke detector. Through all of this, I also had to prepare the paste for the turkey, a mustard coloured sludge composed of egg yolks and, amongst other things, onion juice.  Now, I don't know about you, but collecting a quarter cup of onion juice is a task about as futile as herding kittens, the latter being by far the more tolerable experience as it does not induce crying.  Things got so bad that my sunglasses-clad wife eventually made "onion juice" by processing two whole onions on the liquefy setting of our blender.

I'd be lying if I said I didn't enjoy the pasting the bird.  By the time I was done I was left with something straight out of the avian version of Goldfinger.  Let's call her... Jill Gobblerson.  I was even more encouraged when the paste started hardening and darkening, exactly per my expectations.  Before I knew it, I had begun basting the bird every fifteen minutes -- as per Thompson's instructions -- in a liquid composed of a generous dose of apple cider simmered with giblets, garlic, and spices.  At this point I was feeling pretty good about things, and had begun to believe that all my hard work was about to be reward with a bird exceeding mine and my wife's wildest expectations.

Then it all went pear shaped on me.  The biggest problem was trying to turn the turkey, a maneuver for which Thompson offers absolutely no advice.  There is no good way to flip a scorchingly hot, twenty-plus pound turkey, especially when said flipping must be done with minimal damage to the bird.  I tried by grabbing the front and back of the turkey.  The minute I tried to lift, the stuffing-filled area around the neck literally separated from the rest of the bird.  After cursing Thompson and his offspring, I tried flipping by gripping the side of the bird, around its wings.  This worked.  My wife and I then tried as best we could to MacGyver Humpty-Dumpty together again using a poultry sewing needle and some trussing twine.  This was not especially successful.

After three and a half hours in the oven, I decided to take the turkey's temperature.  Given that the recipe calls for at least fours hours of cooking at 325F after the high heat browning, I was shocked to  discover that my turkey was already over 170F in the breast.  I immediately declared the turkey done, and, boy, it sure looked like it had been through hell: carbon black, and literally held together by a string.

By my calculations, I'd already invested approximately ten hours in this turkey, so I was expecting a major payoff.  You can imagine my chagrin when I discovered that, despite a slightly overdone bird, I had stuffing that was no where near cooked.  I removed the stuffing, and stuck it back in the oven.  As for the bird... it was underwhelming.  The meat, though juicy, was no more moist than previous birds that I had brined.  The flavour, especially in small pockets of the legs, was by far the tastiest turkey I've ever had: it was actually sweet, and redolent of the cider with which I'd basted the turkey.  The breast, however, was no tastier than other turkey meat, and there was virtually no skin as most of it had peeled off with the shell.

By far the best part of this bird was the stuffing.  Understand that I do not generally enjoy stuffing, as it's usually nothing more than a predictable mixture of bread, onion, and sage.  The stuffing that emerged from this turkey was something of a revelation, particularly given the skepticism with which I approached Thompson's recipe, with its emphasis on pineapple, water chestnuts, and a slew of other ingredients that have no apparent affinity for each other (I would be remiss, however, if I didn't mention that, as per Steingarten's instructions, I replaced all the dried herbs with fresh).  This stuffing has recognizable fruit flavours, not to mention moments where the preserved ginger really shines through.  Texturally, the water chestnuts add a noticeably pleasant crunch, but, for the most part, the ingredients seem to meld together.  The stuffing is, without doubt, the star that steals this show.  Before I knew it, I had forsaken the turkey and was busy stealing bites of a stuffing I was actually enjoying.

Intrigued?  Want to try it yourself?  The recipe is widely circulated on the internet (try here, here, and here), and there is, oddly enough, a semi-Canadian version of the recipe which was popularized by Pierre Berton and revisited in a Globe & Mail column in 2004.

Toronto's best Brit-Mex fusion cuisine

Tired of French-Asian fusion?  No longer feelin' Spanish?  Fear no longer, because we here at Hungry In Hogtown are proud to declare the next great trend in food.

Drumroll please....

The next great trend is British-Mexican fusion, and one Toronto food leader is at the vanguard of the movement: Burrito Boyz.

Sure, you could enjoy their chicken, beef, or vegetarian burritos -- and they're all very, very good -- but whoever decided to wrap that staple of British fast food, battered and deep fried halibut inside that staple of Mexican dining, the burrito, is a genius.

So what's so damn great about this burrito?  While, first there's the halibut itself: tender, flaky, and covered in deep fried batter, perhaps the tastiest substance ever invented.  Of course there are also the freshly prepared homemade toppings: from beans and the delicious chili-lime sauce, to rice, fiery hot sauce, and guacamole.

Is the food authentically Mexican?  No.  The guacamole, for example, includes sour cream, something for which Burrito Boyz has drawn criticism from other bloggers.  That said, it has also become something of a media darling, drawing praise from the likes of Now Magazine, Eye, and Joanne Kates, the food critic at The Globe & Mail.  Most importantly, despite the the decidedly low brow atmosphere, long lines, and lack of seating, Burrito Boyz offers food prepared with care, fresh ingredients, and an eye to serving quality product, whether it be to office workers on lunch break or bar hoppers after last call.  That, above all, is the mark of a good restaurant.

Alright, this isn't the beginning of a Brit-Mex revolution.  Come to think of it, the thought of tamales stuffed with mushy peas, blood pudding tacos, or roast beef and yorkshire pudding in a mole sauce is enough to induce nightmares even in those with the bravest appetites.  Nonetheless, this is quality food at a wonderful price, and that's what keeps me coming back over and over again.

Truffles. Betcha can't eat just one.

Little did I understand the dangerous path I'd set for myself last Tuesday when I decided to make one brief phone call.  The call was to Cheese Boutique, in my opinion the best food store in Toronto.  Sure, it's best known for its remarkable selection of cheeses -- not to mention having the unique distinction amongst the city's cheesemongers of still practicing the dying art of affinage, the maturing and aging of cheese -- but it always offers far more than that, like fresh produce, dried pastas, and fresh Italian truffles.  On the day in question, I had phoned to discover if they happened to have any for sale.

Now, my wife and I are great fans of the truffle.  One of our most memorable meals, which was as expensive as it was enjoyable, was a dinner in Bologna in which every course featured truffles: truffled spreads, white truffle risotto, tenderloin in a black truffle sauce, etc.  Of all the meals in all the places, that singular supper comes up often, and always with great fondness for us both, when we talk about our most memorable food experiences together.

Of course, explaining the glories of the truffle is not easy.  My wife and I both have a preference for the white truffle from Alba, a fungus with a fragrance and flavour that are not easily described: it's a little musty, quite earthy, somewhat mushroomy, and, to my mind, ever so slightly garlicky.  In other words, indescribable.

The one thing that can be said about truffles, especially the white ones, is that they are astronomically expensive: Cheese Boutique sold us four tiny, Alban white truffles totaling twenty-four grams, at ten dollars per gram, and one small, twelve gram, Umbrian black truffle, at two dollars per gram.  Admittedly, that's a pretty steep price for an evening's pleasure, but I don't mind paying that kind of money for quality, especially to Cheese Boutique, where I was once shown a basket brimming with black truffles they wouldn't sell to me because they didn't find the quality of the truffles satisfactory. 

Luckily, we have a wonderful friend who always seems willing to participate in our culinary whims.  Ryan is a person who likes his food and his drink, and who, more importantly, is always willing to try something new and is willing to spend a little money to do it.  I really like that.

So, based on nothing more than the promise of a new taste and some risotto, Ryan lugged himself out of bed on Saturday, and came with me to the Cheese Boutique.  Now, I'm a bit of a soft touch when it comes to my food shopping.  I've already mentioned in my first post that I have a penchant for buying things I don't need, but I like to think I took it to a new level this time: after buying almost three hundred dollars in truffles, we sidled up to the cheese counter.  After selecting several kinds of cheese -- including a triple creme Brie Supreme that is, apparently without any comic intent, described as "A gentle, 62% butter fat indulgence" -- what should happen into my line of sight but a sign touting the arrival of the Vacherin Mont D'Or. 

"What's a Vacherin Mont D'Or?" I blurt, knowing full well that the die is already cast.

Do I get a detailed explanation of the origins and flavour of this cheese?  No.  What I get is: "You're buying it.  You have to buy it.  It's perfect with black truffles.  You just cut back the outer membrane, add the sliced black truffle, then you bake it in a low oven until it reaches a soupy consistency.  It's probably the only black truffle dish that's better than white truffles."

Now, to the sane human mind this response seems... inadequate.  To me, this is all the justification I need to make another rash food purchase.  Do I hear my friend when he asks me to check the price?  No, I just buy, buy, buy.  It will probably not surprise you to learn that the Vacherin Mont D'Or is actually not a cheese that is easy on the pocketbook.  Our little bundle of joy set us back fifty dollars.

"Cost be damned," you say (and kudos to you), "how does it taste?"  Well, in my opinion, not so good.  I did as instructed, but I found the cheese had a taste that is reminiscent of brussels sprouts.  That's a real shame, because there may be nothing in the world I hate more than brussels sprouts, even when showered with a generous amount of black truffle.  At least my wife and Ryan enjoyed it.

No matter, white truffles to the rescue.  We actually had enough white truffle to last us two dinners.  The first, last night, was a white truffle risotto that was extremely tasty.  Few bases are better suited to conveying the flavour of white truffle than risotto, which is ideal at letting any ingredient carry the flavour melody while it happily supplies the background harmonies.  Ryan, thankfully discovered he has something of a taste for truffles, and he now understands why it's such an elusive flavour to describe.

Tonight we kept things simpler and lighter, by enjoying a simple salad of mixed baby greens, tomato, and parmesan with extra virgin olive oil and twenty-five year old balsamico, served alongside some scrambled eggs with our remaining white truffle.  I'd never tried truffle with eggs before, and I have to admit I'm a little sad I waited so long.  I think we all found that the scrambled eggs let the white truffle assert itself more than did the risotto.

Of course, I began by describing a phone call I'd made that set me down a "dangerous path", and, ultimately, this post is something of a cautionary tale.  You see, in the process of shaving truffles for the risotto, I had one of those horrible truffle accidents you only ever read about (in blogs like this, for example).  I don't often call dibs on a plate of food, but I had to last night because I put a little bit more of myself into last night's meal than usual.  That's right, I accidentally shaved my thumb.

PS: Enjoy this truffle story?  There's another great one here, courtesy of Chez Pim.

Curds Gone Wild!

What happens when a group of smooth-skinned, fresh off the farm Meyer lemons, having just blossomed into maturity, leave home for the first time?  It's rich, it's creamy, it's...  Curds Gone Wild!

And we've got the delicious photos.

That's right, with a little manipulation we got these lemons to come out of their shells and expose themselves for the little tarts they are.  (That's enough! ed.)

Actually, there's no curd here, just lemon sabayon and pine nut crust.  The recipes come from Thomas Keller's Bouchon cookbook, which I recently broke down and bought after checking it out of the library many, many times.  Though inconveniently large (I don't actually have a bookshelf big enough to hold it), the book is a valuable resource for the experienced home cook looking to expand their technique and repertoire.

This tart is the first recipe I've tried from the book, and it is wonderful.  I've never been a big fan of making lemon meringue pie, which presents any home cook too many opportunities to screw the whole thing up: pie crust-, curd-, and meringue-making all come with numerous pitfalls.

Tart dough and sabayon are, in comparison, a snap.  In this recipe, the tart is blind baked, so it always comes out lightly browned and perfectly cooked.  Sabayon takes nothing more than a strong wrist and a little bit of patience.

The ultimate test of any recipe is, simply, does it taste good?  The answer here is an emphatic yes.  The crust is buttery and rich, but still has a little crunch; the sabayon is creamy and tart, but not puckeringly so, and there's none of the egginess that sometimes occurs with lemon curd.

I would offer only two small criticisms of the recipe: First, be sure to dock the crust before baking it; second, it seems such a shame not use at least some of the zest from the juiced lemons; so I usually add it while making the sabayon.

The amazing adventures of Pear and Gorgonzola

Twenty centimetres of snow!

Aside from running to a far away atoll with sandy beaches (and a steady supply of Italian food and ice cream), I can think of only one appropriate gastronomic response: risotto, and in large, belly warming quantities.

Enter our protagonists: Pear, a ruddy faced, versatile team player, who brings flavour to any occasion.  His partner in crime?  Gorgonzola, a smooth talking Italian who just oozes charm, but whose social circle is limited to those who have learned to tolerate -- nay, adore -- his odour "problem."

Alright, alright, I'm not buying it either.  Nonetheless, my wife and I make a caramelized pear and Gorgonzola risotto that would blow your mind (which is why you should find the recipe below, print it, and put it somewhere you'll never lose it.  That, or bookmark this page.).  Go ahead, I'll wait....

"So," you're probably wondering, "what's so damn good about this risotto?"  Well, there's nothing quite like the taste of a sweet, caramelized pear when it's enjoyed with the vaguest hint of blue cheese and the rich creaminess of arborio rice.  That hint of sweet, balanced by a tinge of rot (you know you love it), and all that fruity, creamy, cheesy goodness make this risotto the perfect comfort food.  If you really want to make this dish a one way trip to Flavoland, use torta di mascarpone (an Italian cheese composed of alternating layers of Gorgonzola and mascarpone).

There are a couple of keys to this dish: first, use good cheese; second, be sure to caramelize the pears (remember the second rule of risotto club: goldenness = tastiness).  Bet you're dying to know the first rule of risotto club, aren't you?

Without further ado, I present you heaven on a cold winter's night:

Caramelized Pear and Gorgonzola Risotto

3 firm Bosc pears (may substitute Bartlett or any other pear suitable for cooking)
175 grams Gorgonzola or torta di mascarpone, cut into chunks
375 grams arborio or other suitable risotto rice
1 cooking onion, diced
1 L chicken stock (may substitute vegetable, if you'd like a vegetarian dish)
200 ml white wine, if desired
2 tbsp unsalted butter
1 tbsp extra virgin olive oil (how did those imperial measurements sneak into my metric recipe?)
pinch of sugar
salt
pepper

Peel the pears, and cut them lengthwise into quarters.  Remove the core from each quarter, then cut in half width-wise.  Cut the smaller (top) piece in half lengthwise, and cut the larger (bottom) piece in quarters lengthwise.  If you've done it properly, each pear should yield 24 wedges.

Preheat chicken stock to a bare simmer.

In a large saucepan or dutch oven over medium heat, heat olive oil, add onions, and cook until translucent.  Add the rice, and cook until white dots appear in the centre of each grain.

If using wine, add it at this point, stirring.  When it is reduced, add just enough hot chicken stock to cover the rice, and stir very frequently.  The liquid should barely simmer throughout this process.  Repeat this step until the rice is al dente, approximately eighteen to twenty minutes.  If the stock runs out before the rice is cooked, substitute water.

Meanwhile, heat a 12-inch saute pan over medium high heat.  When it is very hot, add the butter, the pears, and the sugar.  Don't fidget with the pears.  Turn them every three or four minutes until they are nicely caramelized on both sides.

When the rice is cooked, add the blue cheese, salt, and pepper, and stir until the cheese is completely incorporated into the risotto.

Serve in bowls with additional salt and pepper.

Serves two with leftovers as a main course, four as an appetizer.

Want to see a different take on this dish?  Click here.

The risotto files

In hindsight, I probably should have explained my love of Italian food generally, and risotto and pasta specifically, in my very first post.  So let me do that right now: I am to no small degree obsessed with Italian food, culture, and language.  So much so, in fact, that I've become functionally bilingual in Italian and been to Italy three times in the past four years, not to mention the ever-increasing library of cookbooks, guide books, and books about Italian history and culture that now line the bookshelves in my home.

I owe much if not all of this to my wife, Rachel.  You see, up until about six years ago I devoted no more time to food than most people.  I ate standard fare, cooked almost only when forced, and was happy owning little more than a Joy of Cooking to guide me through those rare kitchen escapades. 

That all changed one night when I came home to a risotto my wife had cooked from scratch (chicken stock included).  At the time, I doubt I had ever heard the term before, and I had certainly never tried one.  My wife set a bowl in front of me that was filled with hot, creamy rice, chunks of cremini and other mushrooms, a grind of pepper, and a sprinkling of parmesan.  Wow!  Needless to say, it was love at first bite.

That was when it first dawned on me just how rewarding a good meal can be, especially when it's cooked for, and shared with, someone special.  From that point forward I began to experiment, to try new things.  Some things worked, and others failed, but over the next few years my enthusiasm grew.

In 2001, we visited Europe for the first time.  After spending our first five days in Malta eating food we did not enjoy, we arrived in Rome.  We dropped our bags at our hotel, and immediately went for lunch at a restaurant near the Coliseum the American owners of our hotel had recommended, Trattoria dei Quaranta.

It was, without a word of exaggeration, an epiphany: crisp, deep fried zucchini blossoms, bruschette, tonnarelle with cacio e pepe, eggplant, espresso, and wine from the hills outside the city.  And that was just the beginning; by the end of our week in Italy, our enthusiasm had become a passion that I hope will last a lifetime.

I would be remiss if I didn't at least include a risotto recipe we cooked tonight.  There are now at least a dozen risotti we cook regularly, and many more we make as a special treat.  Tonight's falls somewhere in the middle: we would cook it more often, but the ingredients -- radicchio di Treviso and good pancetta -- are hard to come by.

If you'd like to make it and live in Toronto, the main ingredients can be had by taking the subway to Summerhill station and visiting two of Toronto's notorious "Five Thieves" food purveyors.  I've only ever found radicchio di Treviso at the Harvest Wagon, home to Toronto's highest quality, and likely most expensive, produce.  Just two doors down, some of the yummiest pancetta this side of the Atlantic can be purchased at Olliffe.

Here's the recipe:

4 heads, radicchio di Treviso, roughly chopped
200 g, thickly sliced pancetta, cubed
375 g, arborio or other suitable risotto rice
250 ml, red wine
1 cooking onion, diced
1 L, chicken stock
1 tbsp plus 1 tsp extra virgin olive oil
parmigiano reggiano
salt
pepper
butter (if desired)

Preheat chicken stock to a bare simmer.

In a large saucepan or dutch oven over medium high heat, combine bacon and 1 tsp olive oil and sauté until bacon is crispy.  Add the radicchio, and cook until wilted.  Transfer bacon and radicchio to a separate bowl.

Lower heat to medium, and add the remaining olive oil and the onion to the pan, and cook until translucent.  Add the rice, and cook until white dots appear in the centre of each grain.

Add wine, stirring.  When it is reduced, add just enough hot chicken stock to cover the rice, and stir very frequently.  The liquid should barely simmer throughout this process.  Repeat this step until the rice is al dente, approximately eighteen to twenty minutes.  If the stock runs out before the rice is cooked, substitute water.

When the rice is cooked, return the pancetta and radicchio to the pot and add butter, and parmigiano, salt, and pepper to taste.

Serve in bowls with additional salt, pepper, and parmigiano as desired.

Serves two with leftovers as a main course, four as an appetizer.

This risotto has something of an odd colour to it, but it is delicious -- a little bitterness from the radicchio, and a subtle smokiness and saltiness from the pancetta.

If you've got lemons...

Make... preserved lemons?

Whenever I go to the St. Lawrence Market, I like to take a gander at whatever new, interesting things might be available.  This is especially true of the produce vendors, where each season brings (or should I say, returns?) lost, but not forgotten, flavours to the kitchen.  True, most produce is available year-round, but there's something more enjoyable about eating foods in season.  I don't mean this to sound snobbish, nor do I believe that food eaten out of season cannot be enjoyed, it's just that things anticipated longest are often enjoyed most.

But I digress....

What I was going to say is that I found newly arrived Meyer lemons at the organic greengrocer.  Keep in mind that up until last year I'd wondered if Meyer lemons were available anywhere in Toronto.  Now I know of two places that sell them, but they are available in limited quantities for a limited time, so I seized the opportunity and bought more than two kilos without having any idea how I would use them. 

As my wife knows all too well, making rash food purchases is just how I roll, because my desire to purchase an ingredient is always inversely proportional to its availability.  Typical conversations go something like this: 

"Fennel pollen at $30 US for twenty-eight grams?  We have to get that."

"Rob," she'll reply, "what would you use it for?"

"I don't know, but I can figure something out."  Then I buy it.  By the way, does anyone have any recipes that include fennel pollen?  I still have, ohhhh, twenty-eight grams waiting to be used.

But back to the lemons.  What to do, what to do?  Then it occurred to me: I remembered a meal my wife and I shared at Mario Batali's Roman-style trattoria, Lupa, on a recent trip to New York.  We shared a trout dish made with preserved lemons.  I remember the dish because the preserved lemons in it tasted vividly like Creamsicle, and, damn, do I love Creamsicles.  Now, that doesn't mean I really liked the dish -- trout and Creamsicle is, let's say, an acquired taste -- but I loved that flavour.  I own a small library of Batali's cookbooks, and, sure enough, The Babbo Cookbook contains his recipe for preserved lemons.  So, off to the kitchen I went.

Making preserved lemons couldn't be easier.  After all, you really only need two ingredients: lemons and salt.  I did a little research, and found similar recipes by Jamie Oliver and Christine Cushing, but they used other flavourings (things like peppercorns, cinnamon, and bay leaves), whereas I thought it best to stick to basics on my first kick at this can.

Thanks to my KitchenAid stand mixer with the handy juicer attachment, it took me no more than a few minutes to assemble the juice and the lemons.  All I did was create two perpendicular vertical cuts in each lemon, then I covered the lemon in salt, paying particular attention to salting inside cuts.

For every lemon I cut and salted, I added the juice of one lemon to my storage jar.  I also added the juice of one extra lemon, to ensure that my lemons were completely covered in brine.  Then I packed the lemons as tightly as possible into the jar.

 

The only thing I dislike about this recipe is that I now have to wait a month before sampling.  Let's just say delayed gratification is not really my thing.

I'll be sure to update this post when I finally sample the end product.

In the meantime, I just need to figure out what to do with the ten remaining Meyer lemons sitting in my fridge....