Easy Preserved Lemons - Lacto-Fermented Lemons - Preserved Citrus

today I want to share with you how to make preserved lemons they're basically lacto-fermented lemons and I'll also show you how to do this with limes and mandarin oranges plus I'll share some ideas for herbs and spices that you can add to your preserved citrus to make it extra special hi sweet friends I'm Mary and welcome to Mary's nest where I teach traditional cooking skills for making nutrient-dense foods like bone broth ferments sourdough and more so if you enjoy learning about those things consider subscribing to my channel and don't forget to click on the little notification bell below that'll let you know every time I upload a new video when citrus is in season it's a great time to get a lot of it at a reasonable price and one of the things that you can do with it is to preserve it and basically you're preserving it in salt and you're creating a lacto-fermented citrus and it can be used in all sorts of recipes both savory and sweet commonly you often hear preserved lemons being used in Moroccan dishes that are made in a Tanjung I think that sounds pretty health stuff not sure but it can be used in a lot of other things when roasting chicken or making stovetop chicken dishes it's wonderful with the the mandarin oranges are wonderful with lamb and beef dishes the limes are wonderful with fish dishes there's so much that you can do and you can use both the fruit the pulp inside as well as the peel therefore its prized for the peel but the pulp can be used too so nothing goes to waste and all you need to do is just pick the citrus of your choice and get some salt and you're going to want to use a kosher salt or a fine ground sea salt you want to stay away from your typical traditional table salt because that often has agents in it like anti-caking agents and sometimes chemicals and so on and so forth that can interfere with the preserving or the lacto-fermented process but kosher salt or sea salt is fine all you're gonna need is a jar this is just a clean glass jar this is a canning jar quart size jar but you can use any size you want just adjusted a quart by how many oranges or lemons or limes that you can fit into your jar and as to your fruit if you can get organic that's great but if not don't worry if you can't find organic what I like to do is wash my citrus very well with a mixture of baking soda and vinegar it'll become kind of frothy you can give everything a good scrub and a good rinse and hopefully that helps remove some of the pesticides so once your fruit is all washed and dried all you want to do is remove the little ends just like that just each end and then all you want to do is take your knife and slice partially down through the lemon or whatever other citrus you're using you just don't want to separate it you want to go basically three-quarters of the way down and then you just want to turn your lemon and then again go three-quarters of the way down and that's basically it just one slice down only about 3/4 of the way down and then another slice down just turn it a quarter turn and then slice it again and I'll overlay a video so you can see exactly what I'm doing and then once you have gotten those two slices in you'll be able to separate it almost like in two little petals of a flower if you want you can remove the seeds but it's not required you can remove them after the fact when you go to use them in a recipe the next thing you want to do is just get a bowl this way this just helps so that the salt we're going to put on stays somewhat corralled and you can reuse it what you want to do is get your salt and then just start to sprinkle some right in the middle of the lemon just like that not take a close-up picture so you can see exactly what that looks like with the salt going into the middle of the lemon next you want to get your jar and you just want to spoon in a bit of salt so that you have a base of salt on the bottom not much couple of teaspoonfuls and again depending on what size your George are using you may need more or less next you can go ahead I'm just looking down here at my herbs and spices which I'll talk to you about next you can just go ahead and put your lemon right down into the jar and then just continue to repeat this process which will do stuffing this entire jar just with lemons but what I like to do and that's fine you can do that and it's wonderful but what I like to do is I like to add some herbs and or herbs and spices to the lemons that I preserve and with lemons I really find that I like to add a bay leaf or two and I'll just put it down on the bottom and some thyme those are just two herbs that work so wonderfully with lemon as an alternative though if you think you might use some of these preserved lemons in a more sweet based dish some nice things to add are cinnamon sticks this is wonderful or allspice berries and I'll take a picture and overlay you can see everything I have here work some cloves and if you like a little bit of a licorice flavor you can use the star anis and we'll use some of these with the mandarin oranges I really like using the sweet spices with with them that works beautifully but it also works very well with lemon then I'm gonna take some time this works wonderful with these preserved lemons and I'm just gonna put that down on the bottom and you don't need a lot then I'm gonna go ahead and put my first lemon down into there perfect now we'll go through this and work on the rest of the lemons getting in as many as we can and don't be afraid to really mash these down really tight you want these lemons to be in really tight so just keep pushing them down as much as you can with your hand perfect now will you add another one and periodically as you're pushing the lemons down into the jar you can take some additional salt and just sprinkle it all down into the jar into any of the crevices and then when you think you've got a lot in there go ahead and add in any extra salt from your bowl that you know over pull you that pour it over the when you're pouring them over the lemons didn't quite stay inside the lemons and you could just jiggle that around a little and then what we're going to do is write either with clean hands or if you have a clean grout pounder like this we're going to try to push these lemons down even harder and we're gonna get them to release their juices in this process because eventually we want them to be all covered with the juice well as we keep compressing it you'll see that more and more juice is being released and what we'll do now is we'll add another lemon because I think we can fit more in there so you want to just keep pressing this down and pressing this down fitting in as many lemons as you can and helping them to release as much juice as possible now once you're all done with that go ahead and give another sprinkling of salt right on the top now you eventually want all of your lemons to be under the salted lemon juice however resist the urge to add extra lemon juice if after you're pressing these down not everything is covered with lemon juice don't worry what you want to do is we're gonna go ahead and put the lid on and just watch it over the next couple of days and you will see that the lemons will continue to release juice and over its my icemaker and over the next couple of days chances are your whole jar will be filled with lemon juice and all of your lemons will be covered by the lemon juice and you can even when you open it you can even take your clean kraut pounder and push it down to help them release more lemon juice you can use clean hands to help them release more lemon juice but only if maybe by the fifth day they haven't released enough lemon juice you can add in some fresh lemon juice but give them a chance to release as much juice as they can on their own because you'll be surprised how within a few days you're going to see this slowly fill with liquid naturally now once you're sufficiently happy with the number of lemons that you have in your jar and you feel they're really pounded in and pounded in tight then you can get ready to put your lid on now when I make preserved lemons I do like to leave a little headspace some people like to bring it right up to the top and then when they put their lid on their lid is actually even weighting it down farther however I do find that lemons do continue to release liquid and you can wind up with some bubbling over if it's filled too tightly but if you're concerned that they're not everything is submerged under the liquid you can always add one of those pickling weights those little round glass pickling weights or a little 4 ounce jelly jar a little 4 ounce counting jelly jar and push that in but you really don't need to worry too much about it because there is so much salt in preserved lemons the chances of mold or bad bacteria taking over is highly unlikely this is a very unhospitable environment for for bad bacteria and from mold so what I like to do is just go ahead leave it as is and just put my canning lid on and my canning ring you can use whatever lid your your jar came with for canning jars you can also use the white storage lids whatever you're comfortable with using and whatever command is keep an eye on it as I said if your lemons are not completely submerged under the liquid keep an eye that the lemons are continuing to read release liquid and if by the fifth day there still isn't enough liquid then you can go ahead and add the extra lemon juice it's not so much a matter of keeping them submerged to prevent spoilage because I said there's just so much salt in here but it's keeping them submerged so that the preservation process takes place so that the rinds really soften and change in in taste and what happens is the lemon rind and the lemon flesh begin to absorb the salty brine and it creates a wonderful flavor in the rind and in the flesh and you know with any ferment you just want to keep an eye on it if you feel that maybe there is some fizzing taking place or you're noticing some changes in your jar you know in terms of liquid in terms of color so on and so forth always you can always feel free to just as we say burping you can open it if you're if you're using a canning ring you can just open it like that if you're using a storage lid or any other drawer with a regular lid you can just really some of the pressure if you feel that it's building up inside something that I do recommend is when doing fermented lemons as I've shared with you with some other ferments putting it in a jar in a jar putting it in a bowl is very helpful in the event that you get a little bubble over this can save you a lot when it comes to having to clean up a mess this way if you do get any bubble over its just contained right here in your bowl and it's very easy cleanup now what you want to do is find a warm place in your kitchen and when I say warm place I'm talking about room temperature so somewhere you know in that 70 to 80 degree range just a room temperature place out of direct sunlight and put this aside for 30 days and in 30 days it's going to be lovely and we'll move on and do and I'll show you some ideas that I like to use with the other citrus but in 30 days we'll come back and we'll go through all of these citrus that we've preserved and we'll talk about how to use them in various recipes now limes are great just don't totally on their own just preserved as limes plain no herbs no spices nothing they're terrific however since limes are often used in Mexican cooking it can be fun to add in some spicy chilies now you can break one of these open and add it in like that or you can just keep them whole which is what I'm going to do so there's not too overpowering and we just go through the same process we just cut three quarters of the way through we cut the tips off and we will cut each lime three quarters of the way through fill it with salt push it down into the jar and continue just as we did with the lemons now I just want to mention about these little tips of the lemons and the limes and eventually of the mandarin oranges that I'll trim off don't throw any of this out add this in with your bag of scraps your bag of vegetable scraps that you save for making bone broth because these can help acidulated water and as I've shared if you've seen some of my bone broth videos I like to acidulated water because that helps pull the collagen out of the bones out of the cartilage so on and so forth to help improve the chances of developing a really nice gelatinous bone broth because the more collagen that you can pull out of your bones and out of the cartilage the more likely you're going to have a very gelatinous rich bone broth now we're done with our limes here and we'll get ready to work on the mandarins and I'll show you what spices I like to put in with them now with the mandarin oranges I really like to put in two cinnamon sticks and I'll just put those down in the bottom I like to put in some allspice berries there's little allspice berries and they just put those down in the bottom of the jar maybe a few more and then I also like to add a good helping of cloves this is wonderful and then when you make some desserts where you want to use orange peel this is wonderful what you'll do is you'll remove your mandarin oranges and you'll rinse them really well to get off as much salt as you can and the rind is going to be very tender and you can chop that up really fine add that to different desserts you can add it to muffins you can add it to scones you can sprinkle it in on top of a cake you can mix it in with icing and ice a cake with it it becomes so nice almost like those candied fruits that you see that are sold at Christmastime there it's delightful and it'll have such a wonderful flavor and we're just going to go ahead and do the same thing that we did with the lemons and limes I'm going to take off a little bit of the tip and a little bit of the tail so to speak and then we're just gonna cut it 3/4 of the way down just don't pin it up like a little floral a little flower petal and then add your salt in and then I'm gonna go ahead and put this in I'm actually gonna add a little salt I always like to add a little salt to the bottom of the jar just to get things going and then I'm gonna go ahead and put my mandarin right down in there and the one thing that I love very things I love about preserved citrus but working with mandarins the aroma is so wonderful as is the flavor that's why I like to use the mandarins as opposed to any of the other oranges in the orange family these are just delightful and again we're just gonna you know just use a little force just get it in as get the citrus in as tight as you can and then just continue with the process well we've got all three done the lemons the limes and the mandarins now we're going to put these in as I said for the lemons all three the rules are the same we're gonna put them in a warm place in the kitchen preferably but out of direct sunlight and just keep an eye on them the first five days if they've not completely filled with juice if the citrus hasn't completely released its juices to fill the jar then you can add a little extra lime juice or a little extra lemon juice or a little extra mandarin orange juice but just keep an eye on them put them in bowls find a nice cozy undisturbed place out of direct sunlight and we'll check them in 30 days well it's been 30 days that these have been preserving or fermenting and they look wonderful so let's uncap them and see how they're doing ah oh my gosh I wish you could smell it those lemons are glorious and then over here we've got the limes it's Oh also wonderful and now these mandarin oranges which are my favorite if you preserve mandarin oranges you will love them oh my gosh it's intoxicating it smells so good and with the cinnamon stick and the cloves that we added this is perfect for using in baking well that's leads us to the point of now how do we use these now the first thing that you want to do is just start to take out your preserved lemons depending on how many that you want to use and I'll just get two out and then I'll show you what we're do we're gonna take these over to the sink and we're gonna give them a really good rinse to get off as much salt as we can now once you give them a good rinse and I like to rinse them holding them like this so they're the the skin it's like flesh side down so that I'm not rinsing the water into the flesh like that but rinsing them holding them this way so the skin is there water is hitting all of the skin and the reason I like to do that is it helps preserve some of the lemon flavor of the pulp but yet helps release a lot of the salt off of the skins and I'll take a little video and I'll overlay it so you can see exactly what I'm talking about now the lemons are very soft and pliable after 30 days of being preserved in the salt and they pull apart very easily now generally you'll see that many people will just remove the pulp and use just the skin now you know me I don't like to waste anything so I don't throw pulp out but what I'll do is say I'm roasting a whole chicken and I want to stuff the cavity with lemons I'll just use preserved lemons I'll give them a rinse and I'll put them in hold just like this with the pulp and all and if I'm doing something where I want to use just the zest then I will remove the pulp but I'll save it and I'll grind it up roll it up you know make it into much more of a puree and you can use a little bit and smoothies you can use some in baking you can use some in the water when you make rice or grains there's a lot of things that you can do with the pulp so I personally don't like to discard it but what we're going to do now so I can show you how to prepare the skins or and and create basically lemon zest is we're gonna remove the pulp and then we'll start slicing it up so it's very soft it comes off very easy I'm just using my knife here to move it down once you loosen it a little you can even just pull it off with your hands and it'll come off very easily like this I'll take a close-up picture so that you can see so just continue to pull that off as you'll see it comes off very easily now you have this beautiful piece of preserved lemon rind and at this point you can basically do whatever you want I've just got a little knife here and I'm just cutting some very fine little strips like this or you can chop this even smaller depending what you want to use this in you could use the zest add it to a pie add it to any baked good that you're making you know add it to a Crane's add it to salad salad dressings there's so much that you can do with this and this method of preserving them with salt really brings out Neal Yule when you if you've never done this before and you do this for the first time I think you're going to be so surprised at the aroma of how the preserving method with the salt really releases the the lemon oil the smell is incredible and what's nice about this process is it becomes very very soft it's very different than if you were just zesting a lemon or you and you know with a grater and using zest like that or even slicing some zest this is very tender and actually very flavorful hmm oh it's delicious not salty at all and just a beautiful lemon flavor it's the same process working with the limes exactly like the lemons you can stuff a whole chicken or a turkey whatever the case may be with the lime with the pulp and and the rind put the whole thing into the cavity or if you want remove the the pulp and slice up the rind and make a nice lime zest and then there are these mandarins which are there they're just oh my gosh they smell so good these I think would definitely be wonderful for stuffing a Thanksgiving turkey because citrus being in season at that time of year and then with the little bit of a the cinnamon and clove aroma that has permeated them it's just a lightful and then also after giving these are good rents this pulp can be made into a puree be wonderful adding into cakes or pies especially those that are made when citrus is in season and especially those type baked goods that enjoy the flavor of the clothes and the cinnamon now you know that I like to add you know some spices you can just preserve the mandarins as is you don't have to add cloves and cinnamon or allspice berries whatever you want you can just preserve them plain with the salt but I think adding those spices really adds something very special and makes them very very seasonal since those are those spices are common at the same time that citrus is in season and then as I showed you with the lemon it's the same thing the pulp will come out very easy like that and then you have this beautiful skin that you can the rhyme that you can just zest slice up into little strips or chop it up whatever the case may be and this would be wonderful added to couscous that you make where you've added some dried fruits like apricots and currants and then and some nuts maybe and then add in some of the zest of this preserved mandarin orange it will be scrumptious now at this point you can leave these on your counter if you want and chances are you're going to use them up pretty quickly or you can refrigerate them I like to refrigerate them at this point just put some storage lids on you know the white storage lids that come that you can buy that are made for canning jars and I find I like keeping them in the refrigerator in the refrigerator after 30 days of preserving I find that the texture and the flavor everything just for me I find stays a little better by refrigerating them but you can certainly leave them on the counter and they'll continue to ferment and when you've used up all of your preserves citrus don't discard the brine you can use this brine to start this process all over again preserving lemons limes and citrus whatever the case may be this brine is going to be wonderful to help jumpstart the process or if you decide that at the particular time you don't need anymore preserve citrus or it's out of season don't discard the brine use it just put it to keep it in your refrigerator and when you need a salty lemon flavor or a salty lime flavor or salty orange flavor you can use this brine so again like if you're making your grains or rice or whatever the case may be add a tablespoon of this to soups it will be wonderful well I hope you'll give preserved citrus a try and if you'd like to learn more about traditional nutrient-dense cooking be sure to subscribe to my channel and then click on this video over here where I have a playlist where I show you how to ferment vegetables and see you over there in my Texas Hill Country kitchen love and God bless [Music]

Channel: Mary's Nest

Views: 148,300

Rating: 4.959363 out of 5

Keywords: Easy Preserved Lemons - Lacto-Fermented Lemons - Preserved Citrus, How to Make Easy Preserved Lemons, Lacto-Fermented Lemons, Preserved Citrus, Easy preserved lemons, preserved lemons, how to make preserved lemons, How to make cured lemons, cured lemons, lacto fermentation, lemons, what to do with lemons, fermented lemons, how to preserve lemons, preserved lemons recipe, how to preserve lemons in salt, lemon recipe, marysnest, marys nest

Id: E0NRK7PrrdM

Length: 26min 30sec (1590 seconds)

Published: Tue Dec 10 2019