Lemon Confit

I may have mentioned the book "Charcuterie" that Marissa got me. One thing in it appealed to both of us a lot: lemon confit. A confit is something stored in salt and it's own juices, a way of preserving food. The most famous is duck confit, where a duck is cooked and stored in its own fat, aged for weeks. Supposedly unbelievable. I'll get back to you on that one, dying to try it.

The idea with lemons is this: salt the heck out of lemons in a jar, wait three months. To quote the book, "a common ingredient in North African and Middle Eastern cuisines, it lends a beguiling lemony-salty brightness to stews, curries, and sauces." Sounds great, right?



One inch of salt in the bottom (pickling salt, uniodized and finely ground), three lemons per quart jar. Top with salt, shake and store. I'll get back to you guys when we're ready to cook with it.

Speaking of middle eastern, we went to get tacos at Fiesta Latina in Everett (which Marissa admitted is "L.A. good," I had cow-face tacos, Marissa had tongue... both a lot tamer and more delicious than they sound. Next time I'm going tripe), and checked out the neighboring Zam Zam International Market. They've got hunks of goat and lamb for about five bucks a pound. I see some delicious curries in our future.