Lemons

Lemons are oval shaped, bright yellow citrus fruits with either thin, smooth skin or thick, knobbly skin. Smooth-skinned varieties tend to have more juice, so are better for most culinary purposes. However, choose thick-skinned varieties for recipes that call for lemon peel or zest.

Common Lemon

Meyer Lemon

Grated zest can be used to flavour a wide variety of savoury and sweet dishes, such as casseroles, sauces, cakes, puddings and biscuits, whilst slices may be used to garnish sweet and savoury dishes and drinks. Lemon juice itself has a wide variety of uses, including the following:

• Can be used to make sorbets, fruit puddings or lemon butter or other desserts.
• A few drops will prevent oxidation, and so stops vegetables and fruit from browning.
• May be used in salad dressings instead of vinegar.
• When added to the water, lemon juice helps poached eggs to coagulate.
• When poaching or stewing fruit, a small amount of lemon juice can help prevent the fruit from breaking up or losing its shape.
• A few drops added to the water will help boiled rice to keep its snowy-white colour.

Whenever possible, lemon juice should be added to dishes after they are cooked to avoid loss of vitamin C, which disappears when the juice is heated.