RULE LEMON CURD

Mosaic 

on the wall of a 6th.century synagogue in the southern Negev, Israel, shows

two etrogim (yellow citron)  at the base of a menorah. 

Nephrite Budda's Hand lemon, Ming Dinasty,

Let Proust have his madeleines. When I want a treat that evokes sunshine, secluded beaches, a green sea dotted with multicoloured sails, I will take lemon curd. Deliciously tart, versatile, and easy to prepare, this ambrosial concoction probably originated in Elizabethan England. It is not difficult for me to imagine great batches  of it bubbling away in  the very kitchen of the Virgin Queen. She was, after all, a lover of preserves and dulcets.
One does not have to be royal in order to indulge in lemon curd.  Sugar is no longer the luxury it  was in the 16th. century and neither are lemons. The latter are abundant and fairly  inexpensive at this time the year. One can choose less common varieties of lemon as the main ingredient for curd-- Meyer ons, hand of Buddha or the yellow lemon Israels call etrog. I suspect that  yuzu would also work. I will lnow come autumn, if a neighbour decides to ell some of her harvest. Meantime I go with what is available at the local supermarket--Lisbon lemons, I believe. I wash them thoroughly, remove enough zest to fill a tablespoon,  squeeze enough--six or seven, depending on size-- to get three quarters of a cup of juice, add eggs, butter and sugar and cook in an enamelled pot at medium heat  for six minutes. That's it. The recipe yields twelve ounces of curd that  can be used as filling for cookies, as a spread for scones, toast, biscotti. Heck, it is good enough to hold together two Proustian madeleines.


PERFECT LEMON CURD
 Tawny at www.allrecipes.com

• 3/4 cup fresh lemon juice
• 1 tablespoon grated lemon zest
• 3/4 cup sugar
• 3 eggs
• 1/2 cup unsalted butter, cubed

Directions

1. In a 2 quart saucepan, combine lemon juice, lemon zest, sugar, eggs, and butter. Cook over medium-low heat until thick enough to hold marks from whisk, and first bubble appears on surface, about 6 minutes.

AGATHA CHRISTIE'S LEMON

As Lemon Week winds down, with nary a lemon related craft project, Agatha Christie's Miss Lemon, Poirot's efficient secretary comes to mind. It is her destiny to play  no larger role in Poirot's daily life than that of appointment keeper and fetcher of tisannes.Her greatest ambition is to come up with  up with the perfect filing system. While she  she waits for inspiration, her routine is only interrupted by  Poirot and and his sidekick  Arthur Hastings' s adventures.
 I had  hoped  to run this blog in Miss Lemon's minimalist manner. That is, I would fetch tea and dream of the perfect filing system while  talented artists and artisans discussed their work ad shared projects.   It is too early in the game to know whether this is a good plan. Judging from Lemon Week, I need to to be a bit more aggressive in my search for guest bloggers.  For the moment, I offer a couple of recipes for lemony delights. The first, Preserved Lemons--lemons pickled in salt-- is embarassingly simple. The glorious part only becomes apparent when one dds the results to other dishes, such as an eggplant, tomato, onion and cheese casserole.Then it packs terrific olfactory and gustory punch--think sunshine, blue skies, green seas and tropical flowers in a spoon.

PRESERVED LEMONS
6 lemons, scrubbed and seeded
1 cup of lemon juice
1 cup of kosher salt

Sterilyse a canning jar. Fill it with alternate layers of lemons and kosher. Add lemon juice. Seal jar and let it sit for a day or two, turning it upside down, occasionally. Store in the refrigerator for three weeks before using the pickled lemons. Remove pulp before use. Pickles will keep for up to six months.


Tomorrow I will post a recipe for lemon curd, which my daughter used with great success as  filler for Linzer cookies and as a topping for scones.

CHALLENGE

This is a gentle challenge to gentle readers. Winter is so very  present in my village I wish for long sunny days filled with the fragrance of yellow roses and the sweetness of homemade lemonade.  What do you say we  make lemons  this coming  week's theme? Actual lemons re not required. The literary variety,   such as THE LEMON TABLE, by Julian Barnes,will do. Do you have your  your own version of the old folk song? Send it to me in Audacity format or Soundcloud and I will  post it here. Do you have a story,  recipe, a citrus yellow hat you knitted, a dress you made, a cake you baked,  a painting? How about sharing it here? There shall be a prize for the most popular contribution.