Prospecting the Pantry: Lemon-Tarragon Marmalade on Roasted Salmon and Spinach

People ask me how we manage to use the hundreds of jars of jelly, jam and marmalade I preserve each year. Can there be that much breakfast toast in the world? Probably, perhaps in the homes of family and friends, since I give away so much of the production in four-ounce jars, enough for a few days or a week. At our house, however, they become ingredients or condiments to provide a certain spark to our food.

The piquant marmalade that I make from Meyer lemons and tarragon is a surprisingly versatile ingredient. The abundance of peel offsets any tendency toward being sugary. Quite the opposite: it’s almost bitter. Stirred into steamed potatoes, or parboiled winter kale, or a root vegetable soup, it transforms ordinary ingredients into an extraordinary combination of flavors. Here I added the marmalade to pan-grilled salmon sitting atop seasonal spinach and “fried” leftover spaghetti. The combination of textures and flavors was terrific.

The time for making this marmalade, for me, is late March to early May, when seasonal organic Meyer lemons are still available, but waning, and French tarragon bursts forth in my pot garden, a seeming miracle after a winter of dormancy.  The recipe for Meyer Lemon Marmalade with Tarragon can be found here.

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Two Marmalades: Tangelo and Lemon-Rosemary

Crates of citrus are eager opportunities for marmalade. Christmas gifts shipped straight from the grove are transformed into gold and sent back out in sparkling jars that should last the year but never do.

My first post in a yearlong (2010) blog fest called the Tigress Can Jam was Meyer Lemon Marmalade with variations using ginger and rosemary. The lemons were a Christmas gift from a peripatetic family member who returned from a San Francisco sojourn with arms full of fruit that she had picked from a tree in her yard. The resulting recipe has been one of the most sought-after on my website and I am thus frequently reminded of that memorable marmalade.

This year, I was given a load of lemons leftover from a holiday party and promptly set about turning them into marmalade stewed with rosemary from my garden. The typical proportion of sugar to fruit is 3:4 (in other words add 3/4 cup of sugar for each cup of fruit. I cut down a little on this for the lemon marmalade since I wanted it to be robust but not puckery.  Next up this year was somewhat delicate tangelo marmalade, made with fruit that was thin in skin and ample in flesh. Because of that, I added a few extra peels from tangelos that we were eating raw. Since the fruit was very sweet, I once again cut down on the sugar and added a couple of organic Meyer lemons.

There are three important tricks to successful marmalade, two particularly useful if you want to diminish the sugar. First is to select fruit with no or minimal processing, meaning gassing and waxing the skin. That’s possible if you order them from a farm or know someone with a tree. If not, make sure to wash them well (I use warm water, sometimes with a little soap), rinse them well and dry them well before proceeding with the recipe. It’s best to let them sit out on the counter for a couple of hours before proceeding.

The second tip is to cook the flesh and peel mixture (without sugar) for five minutes and let the mixture sit overnight. The third, to go along with the second, is to collect the seeds and place them in a little muslin sack that is cooked with the flesh and peel, left in the container overnight and then squeezed gently to extract the gooey pectin. By doing this, the marmalade will gel in nearly half the time during its final cooking, keeping the flavors fresh and sprightly.

Tangelo Marmalade

6 preferably organic, unblemished and relatively thin-skinned tangelos, scrubbed

Peels from 2 additional tangelos, scrubbed before peeling

2 organic lemons, scrubbed (I used Meyer lemons)

6 c water (to cover by a little less than an inch)

Sugar (amount to be determined, probably 4-6 c)

Peel four of the tangelos by lightly slicing through the skin to divide the fruit in sixths. Cut half of these and the reserved peels into thin strips, 1½ inches long and just under 1/16 inch wide. Cut the remainder into ¼ to 1/3-inch pieces and place in a large, wide saucepan. Slice the tangelo flesh into ½ inch chunks, removing the tough core and the seeds. Reserve the seeds. Add the flesh to the pan. Slice the remaining two tangelos and the lemons into sixths vertically, again removing the core and the seeds. Slice them thinly crosswise into little fan shapes and add them to the pan. (The lemons can be quartered depending on their size.) Place the reserved seeds in a muslin bag or cheesecloth, tie it securely and add it to the citrus mixture. Add the water to the pan and bring to a boil. Cook for five minutes, cover the pan and set aside to cool, refrigerating overnight. (I put mine outside in this weather.) The purpose of this exercise – the overnight soak and the addition of seeds – is to develop the natural pectin that makes the marmalade gel.

The next day (or about 8 hours later), prepare jars for water bath canning. Remove the seed bag. Bring the mixture back to a boil and cook until the peels are just tender, typically 10 minutes or so for oranges (up to 15 for lemons) but less here since tangelo peels are delicate to start with. Measure the citrus mixture and add ¾ of that amount in sugar. (In other words, for 6 c of citrus mixture, add 4 c sugar, for 8 c, add 6.)  You can use a little less as I did. Bring the mixture back to a boil and cook, stirring occasionally so the mixture doesn’t stick to the pan, until the marmalade reaches the gel point. This is either when the temperature, measured on a candy thermometer, reaches 221 degrees, or more reliably (since you can overcook this), when a small drop placed on a plate cooled in the freezer wrinkles to the touch.

Place the hot marmalade into the prepared jars (which should also be hot), wipe the jar rims clean, insert a thin knife to remove the air bubbles, and top them with prepared canning lids (prepared by placing them in boiled water for a few seconds to remove germs). Process in a water bath canner for 10 minutes (for 4- or 8-ounce jars) after the water returns to a boil. Remove the lid, let stand for 5 minutes, and then remove the jars to a cool spot to sit undisturbed until cooled.

Makes 8 half pint jars and double that in 4-ounce jars.

Lemon Rosemary Marmalade

Follow the recipe above for Tangelo Marmalade, substituting lemons.  Cook the mixture with a large sprig of rosemary and let it steep with the lemons overnight. You can also leave the rosemary in the pan when you’re initially cooking the peel but remove it before adding sugar. Insert a sprig of rosemary into each jar before processing, making sure that it is submerged and that all air bubbles have released by plunging a thin knife into each jar.

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Cauliflower Baked with Preserved Lemon

Fresh lemons are not great in my part of the world so when I get good ones, I try to put up some of them by preserving them in salt, Moroccan-style. I find those tangy little pieces to be very versatile in cooking, imparting a depth of character to many dishes, even one as simple as this.

I was checking out Canal House’s latest (and, as always, beautiful) publication online and noticed a recipe for cauliflower baked with preserved lemon. I didn’t record the recipe but the idea was simple enough: separate the cauliflower into florets (or leave whole), sprinkle with olive oil and chopped preserved lemon, and bake at 350 degrees until browned and tender. I stirred the florets a couple of times to make sure they were browning since I skimped on the oil.  This was a delicious combination of fragrant subtle cauliflower sparked with tangy morsels of lemon.

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Sour Cream Blueberry Bread

This was my dessert contribution for a Fourth of July family picnic, served sliced with fresh blueberries.  I’ve had this recipe in an old handwritten notebook of favorites for years but I have no recollection where it came from. It’s a flavorful, tender loaf, more cakelike than some quick breads because of the sour cream. The texture is firmer the second day.  The addition of lemon zest gives it great flavor in between the bites of tart berries. I have sometimes added a pinch of cinnamon.

Sour Cream Blueberry Bread

1 c sour cream

1 tsp baking soda

1½ all-purpose flour

1 tsp baking powder

½ tsp salt

¼ tsp cinnamon (optional)

½ c butter, softened

1 c sugar

2 eggs, room temperature

Grated rind of 1 lemon

½ cup chopped walnuts (optional)

1 c blueberries

2 tsp-1 tbsp flour

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Grease two 7 ½ x 3 ½ x 2 ½ inch loaf pans, or an eight-section mini-loaf pan, or a 9 x 5 3 inch pan.

Mix sour cream and baking soda together and set aside (it will foam up).

Sift dry ingredients together and set aside.

Cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Add eggs, one at a time, beating well after each. Add lemon rind. Add flour mixture and sour cream alternately, beginning and ending with the flour (split flour in thirds, sour cream in half). Add walnuts if using.

Toss the blueberries with a little flour to coat and shake off excess flour. Gently fold blueberries into the batter and pour into pans.

Bake at 350 degrees 40-45 minutes for the 7 ½ x 3 ½ x 2 ½ pans, 25-30 minutes for the mini loaves, or1 hour for the single loaf. Cool thoroughly before removing from the pan.

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Broccoli “Salad” with Preserved Lemons

During the winter, green (meaning lettuce-variety) salads do not always appeal, unless they’re made with bitter greens like escarole, radicchio, Belgian endive, curly endive, frisee or others. Those are my favorites, since the taste and texture are invigorating, individually or in combination. The greens can be tossed with oranges and red onion to offset the ruggedness of the bite, garnished with flavorful cheese, or dressed with an assertive vinaigrette, fortified with sherry vinegar, mustard or other sharp flavors. I personally tend not to tame them with sweetness, but that’s also fine.

A winter alternative is a green “salad” made of cooked vegetables like broccoli or cauliflower, which tend to show well in the market at this time of year. Here, I made a room-temperature salad composed of blanched broccoli, lightly sautéed red onions and red peppers, which was dressed only with a drizzle of juice from a jar of preserved lemons. Wow, a photo can never convey the punch of those tangy lemons. The vegetables absorbed the saltiness and the unexpected burst of flavor was amazing, better than capers or olives. You could shovel a lot of snow after eating that.

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Zucchini Spaghetti with Lemon

Truthfully, this is something I typically make during the summer when fresh zucchini’s available from The Farm. Since I spied a couple of beautiful organic zucchini in the seconds bin at the health food store, which set me back a whole 30 cents, I couldn’t resist. After a series of heavy meals, we were hankering for something lighter, simpler, and in the spirit of our January citrus theme, lemony. We also had a small piece of leftover salmon, which was beautiful and tasty as a garnish.

I like slicing the zucchini lengthwise into long strands about the thickness of the spaghetti, but that’s because I have a nifty slicing tool that I bought at a flea market in Belgium years ago. Sometimes I add carrots to this, sliced the same way as the zucchini. While the spaghetti is cooking, the vegetables are lightly cooked in olive oil. The final dish gets a few squeezes of fresh lemon juice and a mince of parsley and lemon zest. Very refreshing.

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Meyer Lemon Marmalade with Ginger and Rosemary

One of my daughters, an avowed peripatetic who lives in California when not living in New York, came home at Christmastime with an armload of Meyer lemons from her Bay Area backyard. I couldn’t imagine a better gift! Like a length of interesting fabric or a hank of homespun wool, they just beg for some creative thinking.  Among countless other uses, I made preserved lemons since the last batch was running low, but there were still some left. And then, along came the January Can Jam blog event that I signed up for at Tigress in a Jam. http://www.tigressinajam.blogspot.com Ah ha. Perfect. Meyer Lemon Marmalade!  And I can even consider this “local,” at least vicariously.

Meyer lemons are very pretty, with clear, bright and smooth skin, a pleasant aroma and flesh sweeter than other types of lemons.  That’s because they are supposedly a cross between a mandarin orange and a lemon. Native to China, they were introduced to the U.S. in 1908 by Frank Nicholas Meyer, an employee of the U.S. Department of Agriculture, so says a better-than-average Wikipedia entry (better because the citations were thorough) at
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meyer_lemon
.  Mine varied from light yellow to almost orange, showing their relative ripeness.

I had recently put up a batch of orange marmalade so I already had the method in mind. However, the Meyer lemons were pretty seedy so I took a step that I sometimes skip: including the seeds in the cooking process to release their pectin. I thought this would be useful since Meyer lemons have thin skin and little pith, which is where I think some of the fruit’s pectin lives. Well, was I right about the seeds. Just sitting on their own during a boil-and-sit step with the lemons, the seeds had quite a pectin party, and became gluey. (Ah ha, preserved lemons with your seeds intact, I know your secret.) So into a tidy little cheesecloth bag they went to be added to the sugary boil.

Since my mixture looked like it would make 3-4 half-pints, I decided on a taste test.  I added ginger to one jar, rosemary to a second and left the third plain. Since this was a decision made on the fly, I cooked the ginger slices in simple syrup, and dunked the sprig of rosemary in boiling water, before adding them to the jars. This approach basically used the water bath canning process as another level of cooking for flavor. Adding both ginger and rosemary may be overkill but definitely worth a try. If I were making whole batches of the variation, I would add the ginger and/or rosemary during the cooking process as noted in the recipe.

Luckily I didn’t have enough marmalade for a fourth jar, so we had a set of samples to taste with toast for a few days. All three versions were great, but I especially liked the rosemary’s contrast with the sweetness of the citrus. Sweet-toothed Dad liked the ginger, and we both liked the plain one.

Another note: since my lemons came straight from a known tree, they weren’t waxed. Most of the organic lemons I see in the health food store don’t seem waxed, but the pretty ones in the bag from Whole Foods are. I’d either use those only for juice, or wash them first in warm soapy water, rinsing thoroughly. I don’t recall making marmalade from waxed fruit but even the idea feels gummy so I wouldn’t.

Meyer Lemon Marmalade with Ginger and Rosemary Variations

About 10 Meyer lemons (to make 4 cups sliced: see prep steps below)

2 ½ cups of water

Approximately 3 cups sugar

Optional: sprig of rosemary, slices of ginger

Prepare the lemons. Wash them and split them in half lengthwise. Slice a V-groove to remove the center core, and set aside the seeds. Slice the lemons crosswise into thin (1/8”) half moons. Chip the end rind into 3/8” slices. For larger lemons, quarter them before slicing. This yielded 4 cups of sliced lemon.

Combine the lemons and 2 ½ cups of water in a deep pot, and bring to a simmer over medium-high heat. Cook for about 5 minutes, cool, cover and set aside overnight (or for 6-8 hours) in the refrigerator (or outside at this time of year, provided the temperature stays between 30 and 40 degrees).

Return to the stove and simmer until the rind is cooked but not mushy, around 15 minutes. Place a saucer in the freezer for testing doneness later on.

Wrap the reserved seeds in a little cheesecloth tied with a string. Measure the lemon mixture and add sugar in a ratio of 3:4, meaning ¾ cup sugar to 1 cup of fruit. Pour lemon mixture back into the pot, add the pouch of seeds, and cook at a medium boil for about 25 minutes, stirring frequently to prevent a scorched bottom. Remove the seed pouch before the marmalade finishes, so that it doesn’t get too sticky, and discard. The marmalade is done when a candy thermometer reads 222 degrees. Or when a droplet added to the frozen plate doesn’t run. Watch the pot carefully and stir the mix as it seems to go nowhere for a while and then finishes fast.

Optional steps for lemon-ginger marmalade and lemon-rosemary marmalade: Add peeled and sliced ginger (I would do 1 quarter-size thin slice cut into 1/16”-1/8” slivers per jar) to the lemon mixture at the last stage of cooking, or add separately cooked candied ginger slivers to the jar before processing. Add chopped rosemary after about ten minutes of cooking in the last stage, or just add a sprig that’s been dunked in boiling water to the jar before processing.

Spoon the marmalade into hot sterilized jars through a canning funnel. Clean the rims, top with new flat lids that have been dunked in just-boiled water, add the screw lids and process in boiling water in your canner for 10 minutes. Turn off the stove and let sit for 5 minutes, then remove to the counter to cool, undisturbed, for a few hours.

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Moroccan Chicken with Preserved Lemons and Green Olives

I recently had one of those days when the ingredients in the fridge and the pantry aligned to make it obvious what to cook for dinner: chicken breasts, chicken stock, green olives, preserved lemons, saffron left over from my early December Paper Chef adventure, and bulgur, which stood in for couscous.  This probably isn’t quite how Moroccans go about making a tagine (though I’ve been following Paula Wolfert from the early days), but I thought it was really good, aromatic, tasty and nutritious.

One step that I took – coating the meat in a paste of olive oil, garlic and seasonings, and letting it sit for half an hour to an hour – could probably be eliminated to speed things up on a weeknight. However, I think it makes the meat tastier. This is a technique that I typically use with pork chops (mashing the garlic with coarse salt and thyme then adding oil) or lamb (adding Dijon mustard to the mix). I’ve been having a hard time with cayenne (too hot) so I used plain black pepper for this dish. I also did not add salt to the oil and garlic since both the preserved lemons and the olives had plenty.

Moroccan Chicken with Preserved Lemons and Green Olives

1 skinless boned chicken breast, halved

Olive oil

Black pepper

1 clove garlic

1 small onion, diced

½ tsp ground ginger

¼ tsp ground cumin

¼ tsp hot paprika or black pepper

Pinch of saffron (good powder like PIN brand) or ¼ tsp turmeric

1 large or two small carrots, peeled and sliced

¾-1 cup chicken stock

½-1 preserved lemon, seeded and chopped

½ cup green olives, whole or ¼ cup sliced

Parsley or cilantro

Bulghur or couscous

Coat the chicken breasts with a paste made from a pressed garlic clove, a little black pepper and olive oil, and set aside for at least a half hour.  Saute the chicken over medium-high heat until browned on all sides (adding a little more oil to the pan if necessary) but don’t cook it all the way through. Remove to a warm plate and add the onion to the pan, cooking it slowly until translucent. Add the herbs/spices and stir until well combined, then add the carrot, stirring to coat, and the stock. Return the chicken to the pan and simmer, partially covered, until the chicken and carrots are cooked, about 20 minutes.  Add the lemon and olives and heat through.  Taste for seasoning and add salt and pepper as needed.  Garnish with parsley or cilantro and serve over bulgur or couscous.

For cooking bulgur, the ratio of water to grain is 2:1. For medium grain bulgur, which is what I had, I boiled 2 cups of water, added salt and 1 cup of grains, turned off the heat and let it sit for 15 minutes, then fluffed. You could also cook it in simmering water, like rice. Couscous is finer and doesn’t need as much liquid, a ratio of 1.5:1, in other words, use 1½ cup of water to 1 cup of couscous and let it stand for 7-8 minutes.

This makes enough for 2-3 people depending on how hungry you are.

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Preserved Lemons

My first encounter with preserved lemons, a staple of Moroccan cooking, was vicarious but so powerful that I craved them, and the entire cuisine, for years before I dared try my hand at making them or using them as an ingredient. What triggered this was purchasing Paula Wolfert’s wonderful book, Couscous and other Good Food from Morocco, in a second hand shop so many years ago that my copy is a first edition dating from 1973! There was something so interesting and informative about the writing, both the narrative text and the recipes, that I read the book cover to cover in one sitting.

From time to time since then, I’ve made a small jar of preserved lemons, which tends to last for about six months unless I have a large crowd to feed. I preserve them in 12-ounce jelly jars because the portions seem right for us, although a larger jar would work (and from research appears more typical). While I normally make them from regular lemons, I happened to have Meyer lemons this month, so it will be interesting to see how they turn out.

The basic procedure is to quarter lemons lengthwise, add them to the jar until filled, and add salt (I use coarse Kosher salt) and lemon juice to top them off. The jar is then sealed (I use a canning jar and lid) and turned upside down, to redistribute the salt and liquid, every day for about 4 weeks for regular lemons and I guess less for Meyer lemons. The curing will transform the lemons into a syrupy mix. When curing process is complete, store the jarred lemons in the refrigerator.

For a 12-ounce jar, I used 2 organic regular lemons, cut in quarters lengthwise, 2 tbsp and 1 tsp coarse salt, and the juice of 1-2 lemons. With Meyer lemons, the jar took 3 ½ quartered fruits, 2 tbsp and 1 tsp coarse salt, and juice from 2 ½ lemons.  I left the seeds in since they contain pectin that helps create the syrupy consistency.

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