When life hands you LEMONS
Make chicken or lamb, a lemon tart or lemon-boiled shrimp
Lemons get a bad rap.
When we buy a car that doesn’t run, we call it a lemon. When life gives you lemons, we say you should make lemonade, as if lemons were something merely to be endured. It’s not fair.
Lemons are bright and sunshiny, brisk and invigorating. They add a delicious splash of life to food; they sprinkle it with the essence of spring.
I say, when life gives you lemons, you should celebrate. Yay, lemons!
It’s time we elevate the humble lemon to the pantheon of culinary flavors. And so I decided to cook four dishes that take full advantage of this most versatile of citrus fruits.
I made dishes that are sweet and savory, main courses and a dessert. How many other ingredients are equally at home inside a pie as well as saddling up to a piece of grilled meat?
I started with shrimp. Lemon is a natural accompaniment to all crustaceans; I don’t think I’ve ever cooked lobster, crab or shrimp without using at least a healthy squeeze or two of lemon.
In order to highlight and focus on the taste of the lemon, I decided to make the shrimp the easiest way I know how: I boiled it.
Usually when I boil shrimp, I use beer or a mixture of beer and water and a bountiful amount of Old Bay seasoning. But this time, I decided to mix lemon juice with water.
In my first attempt, I used Old Bay, too. It tasted great, but it tasted like Old Bay with just a hint of lemon.
So I tried the water and lemon juice alone. It was still good, but not lemony enough. So I tried water and more lemon juice. It was better, but still not lemony enough.
So I tried a proportion of nearly equal amounts of lemon juice and water, and the result was everything I could hope for: bright and lemony, without overpowering the shrimp.
You can serve the shrimp hot or cold. I decided to forgo the traditional cocktail sauce, because I wanted to savor the flavor of lemon. But if you think shrimp are indecently naked without cocktail sauce, by all means go ahead and serve it.
I next decided to take advantage of a classic combination of flavors that is often overlooked: lamb with lemon. The tang of the lemon plays a soaring counterpoint to what many people (not me) think of as the gaminess of lamb.
I used tender and flavorful lamb chops, and created a marinade of things that go particularly well with lamb — olive oil, garlic, shallots, Dijon mustard, thyme (or rosemary) and lemon juice, plus salt and pepper. I covered the meat with the marinade for one hour before cooking it.
I usually grill my lamb, but not everyone has a grill. So I decided to cook mine on the stove. You don’t get any of the flavor of the fire that way, which is especially desirable with lamb, but you do get more caramelization across the surface of the meat as a trade-off.
It was quicker and easier than using the grill, and the results were marvelous.
The lemon was a high note singing clearly and steadily over the earthbound meatiness of the lamb.
When I thought about how to make a lemon chicken, I had a brilliant idea: Why not use the exact same marinade that I had
used for the lamb? After all, olive oil, garlic, shallots, Dijon mustard, thyme (or rosemary), lemon juice and salt and pepper all go particularly well with chicken, too.
I usually grill my chicken, but not everyone has a grill. So I decided to cook mine in the oven. You don’t get any of the flavor of the fire that way, which is especially desirable with chicken, but it is easier to cook and less fussy.
The chicken tasted great; it was a wonderful roast chicken. But to be honest,
it wasn’t lemony enough to be lemon chicken. So I doubled the amount of lemon juice in the marinade and tried again.
The result was subtle but remarkably pleasant. Not too lemony at all.
For dessert, I had thought to make lemon meringue pie, but I decided that was too commonplace. So I made a lemon Shaker tart.
Reputedly based on a recipe from the Shakers, this tart uses every part of the lemon, skin and all. Well, not the seeds. But it uses the whole lemon,
minus the seeds.
I made cookbook author Alison Roman’s recipe, which uses a simple shortbread crust. It’s ridiculously delicious, with a buttery, crisp base for the lemon custard to go on top.
The custard is also easy, but it requires some waiting time.
You slice a lemon very thin, removing any seeds, and let the slices sit in a mixture of lemon juice and sugar for at least one hour and up to a full day. Then you mix in a lot of egg yolks and whole eggs, along with a bit of flour and a dash of salt, and bake it until you can’t stand how good your house smells.
The tart is an absolute delight, and it’s not too sweet as many lemon desserts can be.
Maybe that’s why it’s called a tart.