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Preserved Lemons
Select sound and moderately thick-skinned lemons, remove a piece about one-half inch in diameter from the stalk end, and with a blunt knife remove all the insides. Place the peels in cold water, leave them for a day or two, changing the water three or four times a day, then put them into a saucepan with more cold water and boil until quite tender, keeping the pan covered and boiling slowly. Prepare a syrup, using about two pounds of sugar and one pint of water to each pound of fruit; add the juice of one lemon, clarify the syrup, skim, and allow it to get cold. Put in the peels and boil for half an hour, or until quite clear. They are then ready for packing away.
Despite the name, these are not the salt-packed lemons of North African cooking. They are hollowed lemon shells candied in heavy syrup, the old confectioner's succade, and the whole point is the long soaking that pulls the bitterness out of the pith.
- Do not skip the soakingOne to two days in frequently changed cold water is what makes the peel edible rather than acrid. Skimp on the water changes and the finished fruit stays bitter no matter how much sugar goes into it.
- Hollowing the shellsA grapefruit spoon or a small stiff spoon works better than a blunt knife for scraping out membrane and flesh through the half-inch opening. Keep the shell intact; the point is a whole translucent lemon.
- How long "quite tender" takesThe recipe gives no time; slow covered boiling can take an hour or more, longer for thick skins. Test with a skewer, which should pass through the peel with no resistance. Underboiled peel will never soften once it hits sugar syrup.
- The syrup proportionsTwo pounds of sugar to one pint (2 cups) of water per pound of fruit is a very heavy syrup, on the order of 2:1 sugar to water by weight. A pound of lemons is roughly four or five medium fruit, so scale from there.
- ClarifyingPeriod clarification meant whisking in a little egg white, bringing the syrup up, and lifting off the grey scum it carried. With clean modern granulated sugar this is unnecessary; bring the syrup to a boil, skim once, and let it cool.
- Guarding against crystallisationAt this sugar concentration the syrup will grain if sugar crystals cling to the pan sides. The lemon juice called for will also act as an acid, inverting some of the sucrose; wash the sides down with a wet brush and avoid stirring once it boils.
- The final half hourClarity is the doneness cue, not the clock. The peel should go glassy and slightly translucent; if it is still opaque after 30 minutes, keep going at a bare simmer.
- "Packing away"Either pack the shells into clean jars, cover completely with the hot syrup, and keep them refrigerated, or lift them out, drain on a rack for a day or two, and roll in granulated sugar for dry candied lemon. Any fruit left standing above the syrup line will mould.
- Yield and useA few candied lemons is a garnish supply, not a dessert. Slice them thin for cake and trifle work, chop for fruitcake, or serve one whole per plate with cream.
"Preserved" here carries its older sense of preserved in sugar, and whole candied citrus of this kind descends from the medieval and Renaissance apothecary trade in succade — citron, orange and lemon peel boiled in syrup, first as medicine and sweetmeat, later as the standard confectioner's garnish. By the time Oscar Tschirky was running the dining rooms at the Waldorf, a hotel kitchen of that size had a pastry department needing a steady supply for cakes, ices, petits fours and plate decoration. The technique of hollowing the shell through a small hole at the stalk end so the fruit keeps its shape is often described as a confectioner's flourish rather than a cook's shortcut: it produces a whole glassy lemon that can be sliced across into rings, which no chopped peel can imitate.