What are the Best 3 ways to maximize your citrus? Think juice, zest and creative other. There are multiple uses for citrus. It stands to reason, a little mindful frugality and efficiency in the kitchen can yield a more pleasant cooking and dining experience.
There are a lot of great tips for extracting juice from citrus – including heating it up and rolling it between your palm and a hard surface. But there’s still more life in that lemon or lime. I tend to look at citrus possibilities in threes – juice, zest and creative other.
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How many possibilities do you see?
You’re in the middle of a recipe that calls for the juice of one lemon. You reach for the juicer in your gadget drawer, squeeze the living daylights out of that poor lemon (rather unceremoniously, I might add) and throw away what’s left of that beautiful piece of citrus before moving on to the next ingredient on the list. STOP! Let’s rethink the use of that lemon for a second.
I can’t count the number of times I started a recipe only to realize halfway through that I needed a teaspoon of lemon zest. And I simply can’t make a holiday bread with the candied citrus found in most grocery stores. I’m sorry, I just can’t bring myself to do it. I want the real thing. But I don’t always want to take the time – nor do I have the time – to make candied citrus peel at the very moment I want to bake. Really, who does today?
One of the Best 3 Ways to Maximize Your Citrus use is to save the peel by either freezing or making into a candied peel for future use.
One of the Best 3 Ways to Maximize Your Citrus – Use leftover lemons in cooking to impart flavor
I’ll often save and slice up the remaining flesh of a lemon after squeezing out the juice when I know I’m going to be making stuffed grape leaves in the near future.
For example, in my recipe for Savory Tart Cherry Dolmas, a shallow pan is lined with lemon slices and grape leaves before adding a layer of stuffed grape leaves on top to be steamed.
Using the reamed lemons for this task is a great way to impart their flavor and save yourself from having to slice up a new lemon. After the lemon layer is put into place, another layer of broken or odd-shaped grape leaves is placed on top of the lemons. This creates a protective layer for the dolmas as they are cooking. The dolmas are arranged in a single layer as shown. Two cups of boiling hot water are poured over the dolmas and a plate is placed over the top to hold them down. The plate will keep them from floating up in the water during the cooking cycle.
Using the leftover lemon is another example of one of the Best 3 Ways to Maximize your citrus use.
Mindful frugality and efficiency.
I’ve learned over the years that a little mindful frugality and efficiency in the kitchen can yield a more pleasant cooking experience. For example, before cutting into a lemon, I ask myself how I can respectfully squeeze every last possibility out of it.
There’s zest that I can remove, place in a container and freeze for a later date. I can do the same with just the peel, which I can candy today and save for a later date when I want to bake bread or a cake. There’s extra juice that I can use in a marinade, pith that I can use in a lemonade and later compost in my garden.
For example, whenever I make Easy 2-Week Homemade Italian Limoncello, I save the peels after they are done soaking in the alcohol. They make a great, booze-infused candied lemon peel that tastes absolutely amazing in baked goods. Saving the peels is definitely one of the Best 3-Ways to maximize your citrus.
I can even make a clementine peel into a votive candle holder for my holiday table. This example falls squarely into the “other creative uses” category of the Best 3 Ways to Maximize Your Citrus. Now you might feel that’s a lot of pressure to put on yourself in that moment, but really, you don’t have to decide right there and then. You’re giving yourself the flexibility down the road to cook how you want, when you want.
So the next time you pick up a lovely piece of citrus, approach it with the mindset of nothing wasted, and so much more to gain.
