Lemon “Goop” and Syrup

Makes about ⅔ cup goop and ¾ cup syrup

I had something like this years and years ago at a restaurant near Le Dôme in Paris. It was served with tuna; perhaps tuna cooked in olive oil, I don’t remember. What I do remember is that I loved it, went home, tried to re-create it and came up short. The second time I had it was at a Paris bistro called Les Enfants Rouges, where the chef, Daï Shinozuka, served a dab of it with fish. Daï gave me a recipe — and this is based on it — but his started with preserved lemons. The recipe I finally came up with uses ordinary lemons and finishes up as a glossy jam that tastes a little like preserved lemons but is sweeter and more complex.

You’ll have more syrup than you need to make the jam — aka “goop” — but the syrup is as good as the jam. I’ve added it to vinaigrettes, roasted beets, sautéed green beans, tuna salad, chicken salad and more. It’s a terrific “tool” to have in the fridge.

I serve the goop with fish and shellfish, pork and chicken. To start you on the road to playing around with this, try it on Twice-Flavored Scallops.

• 6 large lemons
• 2 cups (480 ml) water
• 1½ cups (300 grams) sugar
• 2 teaspoons fine sea salt

Working Ahead

Refrigerate the goop and syrup separately until needed. In a tightly covered container, the syrup will keep forever, and the goop’s lifespan is only slightly shorter.

Using a vegetable peeler or small paring knife, remove the zest from 3 of the lemons, taking care not to include any of the white pith; set aside.

One by one, cut a slice from the top and bottom of each lemon, cutting deeply enough to reveal the fruit. Stand the lemon upright on a cutting board and, cutting from top to bottom, slice away the rind and pith, again cutting until the fruit is revealed. Slice between the membranes of each lemon to release the segments.

Bring the water, sugar and salt to a boil in a medium saucepan. Drop in the segments and reserved zest and bring back to a boil, then lower the heat so that the syrup simmers gently. Cook for about 1 hour, at which point the syrup will have thickened and the lemons will have pretty much fallen apart. It might look as though the lemons have dissolved, but there’ll still be fruit in the pan. Remove from the heat.

The fruit needs to be pureed, a job you can do with a blender (regular or immersion) or a food processor; if you have a mini-blender or mini-processor, use it.

Strain the syrup into a bowl and put the fruit in the blender or processor. (Save the syrup in the bowl!) Add a spoonful of the syrup to the lemons and whir until you have a smooth, glistening puree. Add more syrup as needed to keep the fruit moving and to get the consistency you want. I like the goop when it’s thick enough to form a ribbon when dropped from a spoon. Thicker is better than thinner, because you can always adjust the consistency with more of the reserved syrup.

 

citrus, inside and out

There aren’t many ingredients that I consider absolute musts in my kitchen, but I count citrus, particularly lemon, among them and close to the tippy-tippy top. All citrus, whether it’s the zest, the juice or the fruit, adds freshness and pizzazz to dishes both sweet and savory. Just like acidity in a wine, which is so important in balancing the fruit, a little zest or a squirt of juice makes rich dishes a little lighter, heavy dishes a little brighter and sweet dishes a little more nuanced. Citrus is magic.

The skins of many citrus fruits are treated, sometimes with wax, to preserve them, so make sure to wash and dry the fruit before you use it.

Zest is the thinnest, brightest outer part of the fruit; it’s the colored part of the rind without the pith, the white, cottony underside. You can remove the zest with a vegetable peeler — it’s what I use when I want to slice the zest into strips and/or chop it. Or you can grate it. I use rasp-type Microplane graters, most often the one with the very fine blade made specifically for zesting.

When you need segments of any citrus, here’s the easiest way to get them: Cut off a slice from the top and bottom of the fruit — cut far enough down to reveal the fruit. Stand the fruit up on a cutting board and, working from top to bottom, cut along the contours of the fruit, slicing away the rind and pith, until you get to the fruit. In fact, you’ll find it easiest to cut segments if, when you’re removing the rind and pith, you also remove a thin layer of the fruit. Working over a bowl and holding the fruit in one hand, use a paring knife to cut (again from top to bottom) between the segments and the membranes, cutting as close to the membranes as you can, and letting the segments fall into the bowl. You’ll be left with a handful of membranes; squeeze the membranes if you want to capture every last bit of juice.