PrintWhen life gives you meyer lemons...
My next door neighbor gave me two dozen meyer lemons from his tree. Other than lemon bars, what should I do with them?
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21 Comments:
Preserve them.
nelson5757 at 11:24AM on 01/29/08
Or lemon curd. Do a search on www.thekitchn.com, they were talking about Meyer lemons last year and posted several recipes.
Michelle_of_Montreal at 11:32AM on 01/29/08
Meyer lemons are amazing!! Not as tart, they make the best lemon pies. You can freeze the juice in ice cube trays, then take them out of the trays and store the cubes in plastic bags.
Bake a Meyer lemon pound cake or Meyer lemon pudding cake.
Mix with honey to make a dressing for fruit, especially good with blueberries and bananas.
Make a fresh salsa to top grilled fish or bread: add lemon chunks (with rind) to chopped oil-cured olives and green onions and a splash of olive oil.
As nelson5757 said above, preserving them is great. Here's a link for a great way to do it: http://www.101cookbooks.com/archives/000177.html.
I'd also have a party and serve lemon drops!
Can I come live next to your neighbor too?? (grin)
Editmom at 11:39AM on 01/29/08
hollandaise. celebrate.
Raphael at 11:51AM on 01/29/08
I love meyer lemons. They have a great herbal quality to them. I've used them to make Thomas Keller's lemon sabayon tarte, it was awesome. I use them to baste roast chicken, or in the liquid I use to poach fish. I bet they would make a great plain old lemonade, in fact I'm gonna go to the store TODAY and get a few just to try this because it sounds so good thinking about it :)
I'd say, use them for anything you would normally use lemons for, where you want the flavor to be the star of the show. They are magical. I am tempted to buy a couple, since I have good southern exposure light in my apartment. That's how much I like them.
seyo at 12:09PM on 01/29/08
I ditto lemon curd. It makes a great tart, or cake filling or you can just eat it with a spoon.
Preserved lemons are used a lot in Middle Eastern food and they look pretty.
But for other ideas, the LA Times recently published this article 100 Things To Do With a Meyer Lemon.
kjgibson at 12:17PM on 01/29/08
Not sure how much of a drinker you are but you can make one hell of a whiskey sour with those bad boys!!
www.flyboyznyc.com
Mheusler at 12:29PM on 01/29/08
kj, great link, thank you!
seyo at 12:44PM on 01/29/08
Squeeze any you don't use up. Pour the strained juice into an ice tray or a small container that holds one lemon's worth of juice. Freeze. If you used an ice tray, put in the cubes into a ziploc freezer bag. Keeps pretty much indefinitely, but that's only theoretical since you'll end up using it too fast to find out!
Meyer lemons make the most awesome lemonade on earth. But, because they are so sweet and mild compared to Eureka lemons, Meyer lemonade can easily come out too dilute and/or too sweet. So be sure to start out with a lot less water and sugar than the recipe calls for. Add small amounts of each until the flavor seems right.
Lemon Ice Box Pie
Can't lay my hands on the recipe right at the moment, but I'll post it shortly. Pretty much the easiest dessert you'll ever make (other than a piece of fruit eaten out of hand). Basically, it's fresh-squeezed lemon juice, egg yolk and sweetened condensed milk, all mixed well and poured into a graham or nilla wafer crust. Refrigerate. Rich yet not. Devour.
LoCo at 12:53PM on 01/29/08
Becks & Posh just made a couple of suggestion the last couple of days
http://becksposhnosh.blogspot.com/ Check them out.
nickb at 2:06PM on 01/29/08
Keep the ideas coming he still has a whole tree full of lemons he wants to give me!
evilchefmom at 2:40PM on 01/29/08
A friend of mine gave me a huge load of lemons last year from his neighbor's tree. I didn't know what to do with them all, so I juiced what I wasn't going to use, poured the juice in ice trays and made lemon cubes. Then I put the cubes in ziplock bags and froze them. Anytime I need lemon juice, I defrost some cubes and viola!
philn at 3:10PM on 01/29/08
Lemon Ice Box Pie
1/2 cup lemon juice
2 egg yolks
1 can sweetened condensed milk
Combine all ingredients. Pour into a vanilla wafer crust (or graham cracker crust). Refrigerate. Top with whipped cream if desired. The acid in the lemon reacts with the yolks to firm up the pie.
I sometimes add a little vanilla to the mix, too. Really nice with the lemon.
My MIL tops hers with a meringue made from the two leftover egg whites, lightly browned in oven before refrigerating.
LoCo at 3:48PM on 01/29/08
If there are loads coming, definitely look into making preserved lemons. They are easy to make ,will keep a long time and make a great gift. Here's a recipe for making and using them: Moroccan Lamb Stew.
kjgibson at 4:14PM on 01/29/08
I love Meyer lemon juice, slightly reduced, over asparagus.
thepictsie at 4:22PM on 01/29/08
With all these lemons, I also wanted to make a lemon gelato. Any good recipes?
evilchefmom at 4:26PM on 01/29/08
'The Curious Cook' has an an excellent sorbet (somehow strikes me as more suited to lemons than a milk-based item) recipe.
Or eat them out of hand... they are so delicious.
mongoose at 5:21PM on 01/29/08
nickb--thanks for the link!
JEP at 8:23PM on 01/29/08
Lemon souffle! Or preserved lemons -
dettling05 at 8:32PM on 01/29/08
My Mom squeezes fresh lemons every morning and stores the juice in a glass jar in her refrigerator and she makes fresh lemonade for all who visit her. Meyer lemons (and My Mom - she's 84) make amazing lemonade. Her recipe: 1/4 cup fresh lemon juice, 2 tablespoons organic sugar, 1 cup water and shake.
Clairesinnewhaven at 9:40AM on 02/04/08
I absolutely love meyer lemons and frankly prefer them over the regular (Eureka) variety. I made a super easy lemon curd http://figswithbri.com/?p=91
that you might want to try. They are great in salad dressings, as the only acid, or in combination with orange juice or vinegar. At the height of citrus season, I love to make a multi-citrus juice for brunch and include in (varying proportions) ruby red grapefruit, tangerines, oranges and...meyer lemons. The meyers cut the sweetness a little and give more depth of flavor. The zest is spectacular in all kinds of sweet and savory applications as well. Dips, fruit salads, dressings, desserts...you name it. What a treat that you are being given so many. If you made up a bunch of lemon curd, you could give them as gifts for Valentines Day.
FigswithBri at 9:44PM on 02/04/08