Garden Kitchen

Tabbouleh

(Photo LOF- Tabbouleh with lemon in brine)

An excellent recipe of Michelle's for a summer salad for 7/8 people :
Soak  1kg of bulgur in the juice of 6 lemons for about 2 hours.
Gently use a fork to separate the grains of bulgur a few times during the 2 hours.
Add :
 5 big tomatoes skinned and seeded and diced.
 1or 2 small cucumbers peeled, seeded & diced.
 1 finely diced onion
 and a good sized bunch of chopped leaf parsley.
 1/4 of a lemon in brine cut into small pieces.(This is the secret ingredient that makes all the difference)
Don't add salt as the lemon in brine is salty enough. Add 2 tablespoons of olive oil toss, cool before serving.

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Beer with lime

(Photo LOF - cold beer with a slice of lime) 

Sagres sells a 0% beer thats perfect for hot days. The portuguese are great beer lovers - they serve it cold, even dark lagers.
If pale beers like a slice of lemon, medium light beers prefer a slice of lime.
In Mexico a beer is almost always served with a slice of lime. (and salt!)
No need to use more than a slice, it just takes a little to give it that refreshing little spark.

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Limequat and smoked fish

(Photo LOF -  Lakeland Limequat - Bachès - orangeraie LOF n° 26)

Kumquats (Fortunella named after Robert Fortune who imported them to Europe) are often grown in pots on sunny balconies because they are small, resist freezing temperatures and produce fruit 6 months of the year (novembre – avril).

Besides using kumquats as decoration, recipes tend to be limited to kumquat vinager  (leave a few kumquats for 1 month in white wine vinager, it is surprizingly good with a spinach salad or in mayonnaise with crab or hollandaise sauce) and jams or compotes.

So make the giant leap to - limequats.
Of a lime father and a round japanese kumquat mother our limequat was born in Florida 100 years ago with the flavour of limes and the cold hardiness of kumquats.
(Photo LOF - Lakeland Limequat)

Everything about the limequat is good : not too strong, not too sour, fruity flavour, a sweet peel... on smoked fish, in  tagines,  in whitefish papillottes, sangrias....

If you don't have them growing in your garden you may have difficult time finding them . Why? Who knows - a lime lobby?  You will just have to plant one. The Lakeland variety is a good choice for the quality of its fruit.

(Photo LOF - Smoked salmon with limequats)

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Water with Pomelo and Thyme

(Photo LOF - water with yellow grapefruit and thyme)

Spring Cocktails 2005 in New-York they are working on drinks that are « less alcoholic and more casual and appropriate to outdoor drinking » – todays flavours? hibiscus, lavander and thyme.

The following recipe requires a real pomelo not a grapefruit. 
The pomelo is yellow and more aromatic than a grapefruit.
You use ½ pomelo cut in 4 for 75 cl of water.Let it sit for at least 4 hours in the refrigerator with a branch of dryed thyme.
Water with pomelo and thyme is a light water, good with salads, new vegetables, ham with melon , the joys of the first warm days. 

Its best when you are really thirsty; just back from the garden : drink and you cross a universe of images and perfumes.
Now, whether drinking pomelo water fights somnolence at the end of a meal, our gourmandotests show that YES  - especially compared to wine from Evora.
(Photo LOF - Citrus grandis "Thai Chandler" Bachès LOF n°55)

Pamplemousse in French = Pomelo in English
Pomelo in French = Grapefruit in English

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Clementines with red currants

(Photo LOF - Clementines waiting for a red currant)

You are invited to eat with a pretty lusitanian, its sunny, its december, the clemintine trees are full of clemintines. She serves you clemintines with a red currant liquer (groselha).
No need to reread the complete works of Casanova. The message is clear. Red currant liquer has a reputation as an aphrodisiac.
The problem is that it is very, very good. And take second or third helpings has the opposite effect - sieste!
If you don't have this excellent red currant liqueur thats easy to find here, replace it with Ginja (a cherry liquer) or a red currant syrup.

The hand that pours the liquer should be stingy. You mustn't drown the clementines, just wet their toes. Its agood idea to chill the liquer first.
There are many beverages that marry oranges or clementines with red currants. The easiest is 4/5 orange juice and1/5 red currant juice.
 
(Photo LOF : Clementine harvest)

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Chicken with lemon in brine

(Photo Casa d’Aste Babuino – Ecstasy of Marie-Madeleine-Sophie or "ode to the angels that protect our bulges" par Giulio Cesare Procaccini)

Here is a recipe for overcooked chicken, really good. It reminds one of a tagine without excess fat. Its better to use only the dark meat, maybe wings but the rest of the white meat is terrible when it’s overcooked.

Choose a free range chicken (country chicken), with firm legs - chubby, enticing, with legs that are inspiring.

(Photo LOF – chicken legs with lemon in brine)

In your pressure cooker brown the chicken legs. When they are golden brown add (for 10 legs) 2 bay leaves, ½ a lemon in brine cut into small piecesand 2 small glasses of dry white wine citron for example a Macon. Here in Portugal we use a Santa Catarina.

On a low heat for 25 minutes once the pressure has built up. What ever you do don’t add salt, the lemon in brine is salty enough.

This recipe is Sophie’s favourite, which translates to a parade of chicken legs on her plate. « I’d love another» and with lowered eye lids she prays the diet gods of unsightly bulges to save her. Sort of like Marie Madeleine by Giulio Cesare Procaccini (see above). 

 
Serve with a risotto with sweet peppers (half white wine half water). The risotto should be thirsty for the sauce from the chicken. A small glass of  Santa Catarina is allowed.

Please forgive us Sophie for having revealed to the whole wide world one of her weaknesses.

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Lemons in brine

(Photo LOF - lemons in brine, freshly made & after 3 months)

Lemons in brine are one of our favorite spices. You can use it like garlic. It goes well with chicken, fish, veal, lamb, shellfish, pasta, couscous. It replaces garlic in a vinagrette. Its even good in soups. You know the taste if you've eaten a tajine.          (Photo LOF - lemons in our garden)

Its a staple in our kitchen cupboard.

How to make it ? Use a good strong jar because the salt is caustic. Use ripe, untreated lemons fresh from the garden. Some just quarter the lemons and cover them in salt. This method is really tooooo salty.

The following recipe is better.

Use a sewing needle to pin prick the lemons all over.

Arrange the lemons, whole or in quarters, in the jar with a few bay leaves.

Cover them with hot brine. (140 g. of course salt per litre of water).

They are best after being kept for 6 months in the dark, but you can use them after 3 months.

They replace salt entirely in lots of recipes and if they are too salty just rinse them off under the tap before using them. Lemons in brine have a much richer, fuller flavour than lemon juice because the essence in the peel is released. It is a strong condiment - try it.

Papillote with hake filets (or another white fish) : a tbsp lemon in brine cut into small cubes, some fresh cream, and your fish filet in aluminum foil. Bake. Shake the papilotte before serving. Serve. So? worth it wasn't it?

(Photo LOF - citrons piqués, laurier et saumure)

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Orange juice

(Photo LOF - morning orange & pomegranate juice)

Don't waste your time reading sites about vitamin C. Basically they say an urban adult needs 3g per day. If you eat seasonal fruits & vegetables you'll need more in the winter and less in summer. In case of infections, you can up it to 4g.

To conserve vitamin C in orange juice requires opaque packaging and you should avoid heating it.
The orange is the best packaging for orange juice. Surprise ! The highest quantity of vitamin C is in fresh orange juice - squeeze it and drink it.

There is even more vitamin C in a ripe orange picked from the sunny side of the tree. Orange trees need 60 litres of water per day or the oranges tend to fall before they ripen. Too much nitrogen lowers the vitamin C content.Oranges are best stored at 10° C. 

November is coming so we are back to our habit of fresh orange juice for breakfast. How many oranges ?
An average orange for juice weighs about 150 g., it has 75 g. of juice and about 0.075 g. of  vitamin C. So you need 12 oranges per day to get 1g of vitamin C. So that makes about 3 glasses if a glass = 4 oranges.
Its worth investing in a good juicer not to mention an orange grove... maybe a truck.

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