When Life Gives you Lemons

...preserve those suckers!

After waiting weeks and weeks, we decided to debut the lemons yesterday. 

The preserved lemons after their 7 week stint in my cupboard

They looked fantastic. No mould, nothing nasty at all. Their texture had gone slightly gelatinous, but otherwise kept their shape and colour. When I took a small bite, salty lemony goodness flooded my tastebuds. I'm not sure I would want to have a few slices with feta as one person suggested, but as Lawrence pointed out, you don't eat lime pickle straight from the jar either.

So, what to do with them?

In true Ottolenghi style, we went Moroccan.

The lamb, fresh from the local butcher

Lawrence likes recipes, I like winging it, and as I was cooking, we flew. He diced the lamb whilst I chopped a red onion, a red pepper and assembled the spices: paprika, turmeric, coriander, ground ginger, cumin and a splash of chilli oil. I fried these off in some olive oil. We (by which I mean Lawrence) threw in two cartons of chopped tomatoes, a tin of kidney beans and a tin of chick peas, as well as a few diced potatoes and a few cloves of garlic. He also cut up a large handful of apricots. And of course 2/3 of a preserved lemon!

The star of the show!

We stirred and let it all bubble for over an hour.

Hurry up! Hungry!

It was awful waiting for it to cook. I dribbled with anticipation. We dished it out and served it with the rest of the loaf Lawrence had brought over in the morning. It was delish! The preserved lemons lightened the stew and the smell was absolutely amazing. The lamb was so tender, it melted. Om nom nom.

One thing is for certain. I'm a better cook than I am a food photographer! :-) 

My sinuses might have ruined our plans for the weekend, but I refuse to let them get in the way of further experimentation. I will be roasting a chicken later and making couscous to take into work as a pack up. Yes, they will be very lemony indeed.

A New Recipe

I've come up with a new recipe, I thought I'd share. For two reasons 1. because I like to share and 2. I have no idea what to call it.

You will need:

Spices and herbs
1 tsp ground ginger
1 tsp ground corriander
1 tsp paprika
about 5 or 6 cardamom pods crushed in a mortar & pestle
1 tsp mustard seeds
1 tsp ground cinnamon
handful of fresh coriander, roughly chopped.

4 chicken breasts, skinned and diced
small bag of dried apricots
1 tin of cider
1 tin of green lentils
1 tin of chickpeas
1 red onion, chopped
1 red pepper, chopped.

In a large sauce pan, heat some oil. I cook with extra-virgin olive oil out of preference. Proper foodies will say with this kind of cooking it makes no-nevermind as the flavour gets cooked out. But it's the only oil I have in the house.

When the oil is hot dump the onion and pepper in. Fry for a few minutes until it's a bit soft and then add all the spices except the fresh corriander. Fry and breathe deep for a couple of minutes. It's smells divine. It really does. Add the chicken. When the chicken is all nice and brown, throw in the tins of lentils and chickpeas. Stir well. Add the cider a bit at a time until chicken is all covered and bubbling nicely, turn the heat down to simmer. Add the apricots and fresh coriander. Cover the pot and occasionally stir.

With dishes like this, I have no idea how long they take to cook. I think it takes about an hour. About 15 mins before you'd like to eat, put some rice on. Take the lid off the pan of chicken. You'll need to stir regularly. The idea is to get the liquid to evaporate, to thicken up the sauce a bit. When you're happy with the consistency and the rice is ready, remove from heat and serve.

Enjoy!

There is no reason why you could throw other things into the pot. Mushrooms, the odd potato would work too. If you like a bit of heat, add dried or fresh chillis when you fry the onion and pepper. If you, like me, adore cream, just before you're ready to serve, take the pot off the heat and add some double cream or creme fraiche or sour cream. Return to heat, but make sure it doesn't come up to the boil. Simmer is the trick here.

If you are moved enough to cook this, please let me know how you get on.

So finally, what do I call this dish? Gee's husband tends to think anything with apricots, automatically becomes Moroccan. I think a Moroccan might take exception to this. This dish smells and tastes fantastic, so I've just been calling it Fragrant Chicken, but that's not terribly exciting.

Oh yeah, these quanities fed 3 adults and two teenage boys. I'm sure it would be great for left-overs, except there are very few left-overs in this house these days.