When Life gives you Meyers

You need to get into the Kitchen

Which is exactly where I went when a very kind somebody gave me a bag of at least 60 meyer lemons from their tree. I decided to get fancy and play at pretending I was Pierre Hermé.



Although I have already made his honey lime truffles, this was my first attempt at a Pierre Hermé patisserie recipe, a tarte au citron, taken from the fabulous Cooks Book. Let me just say one thing. No, two things. Firstly,if Monsieur Hermé would ever like a lesson on how to rustify the look of his otherwise exquisite pastries, then I'm his girl. Secondly, if you ever substitute regular lemons with Meyers in a Tarte au Citron recipe, then cut back on the sugar because Meyer lemons are naturally much sweeter. Next time I am trying this with the same amount of sugar but using regular lemons instead. Other than being on the sweet side, this tart made with the best local ingredients was scrumptious.

I made this tart to take around to some friends who had invited us to watch France v England in the Rugby on Sunday. But they got the wrong date for its US transmission so the soiree was cancelled. Boy, are they going to be annoyed when they see what they missed out on. (They love Pierre Hermé.) As France trounced England, I don't feel the slightest bit guilty about having scoffed the French tart as a retort. Even though I support Wales. But that's another story...

And here is another lemon Recipe. Preserved Meyer Lemons. Easy Peasy.



Preserved Meyer Lemons:

6-7 juicy, ripe meyer lemons
1/4 cup salt
1 cinnamon stick, snapped in half
6 coriander seeds
4 black peppercorns
1 bay leaf
[extra lemons to make up juice]

1 sterilized half litre jar.

Put one tablespoon of the salt into the bottom of the jar. Cut crosses in the lemons to within the 1/2 inch of the bottom so that they are still joined as one. Sprinkle salt on the exposed flesh. Squoosh the lemons into the jar, packing down tightly as you go, adding the spices and more salt evenly between layers. If there is not enough juice expelled by the lemons, to cover them all sufficiently, then add more fresh lemon juice until they are all submerged. Leave a little airspace at the top and seal the jar.

Leave the jar in a warm place for 30 days, shaking the jar each day to distribute the juices throughout the jar. To use the lemons, first rinse them and then remove the pulp. The lemons do not need to be refrigerated.

(in the photgraph above, the recipe was made using double quantities of everything and a one litre mason jar.)

Thanks to Jenn Knapp at Tante Marie's Cooking School for teaching me this recipe.



PS. Thanks to Jill, fellow pupil in cooking class who took me seriously and remembered when I said if she gave me some of her lemon glut, I would promise to put them to good use.

Links, Resources and Further Reading

Bay Area Resources:
Glaze for Tart | Crabapple Quince Jelly from Loulou's Garden
Cooking School | Tante Marie
Fresh Eggs | Marin Sun Farms
Butter | Straus

Other Resources:
Citrus Lemon | Fruits of Warm Climates
What to do with Preserved Lemons? | Start searching
Exquisite Pastries | Pierre Hermé

Weight loss, Weightwatchers and diet notes:
23 19.5 17.5 17.0 15.0 14.0 13.0 12.5

I was going to use the tarte au Citron as an excuse for not losing weight this week, but I surprised myself when I still managed to shed half a pound. No mean feat since the last seven days saw me indulging in 3 slices of it, more pate sucree scraps than you could count, a slice of pizza, French onion soup oozing with cheese, several glasses of wine and champagne, a middle eastern dinner with lots of dips and bread and other delicious things. Weightwatchers - I've got to love them, it really seems to work for me.

Archive Alert! On this day in 2005: Funnily enough, I was mentioning Loulou's Garden at about this time last year too, after a trip to Berkeley Farmer's Market.

Food | Eat Local | Lemons | San Francisco | Bay+Area | Preserving | Meyer Lemons

When Life gives you Meyers