Preserved lemons—two ways (whole and sliced)

Preserving whole lemons is a slow process and you won’t see any results for at least 6 weeks, but it is worth it. If you need preserved lemons more speedily than this, you can buy them ready to use from many delis, but for a quick home-made fix, follow our preserved lemon slice recipe instead.

To sterilize a jar for the lemons, preheat the oven to 400°F. Wash the jar (and its lid) in hot soapy water. Rinse well and dry thoroughly with a clean tea towel. Place on a baking tray and heat in the oven for 5 minutes. Alternatively pour boiling water into the clean jar, count to ten, then pour the water out and fill the jar immediately.

Whole preserved lemons

This is not so much a recipe as a preparation guide—you can preserve as many lemons as you want or think you will use. Make these when good small lemons are in season and going for a good price. Try to buy unwaxed ones, but otherwise wash the lemons well with soapy water to remove as much wax as possible before you start.

Use a small knife to score a cross three-quarters of the way down into each lemon so it opens up like a flower but stays intact. Fill the cut space with loads of sea salt and put the lemons in a sterilized jar, pushing as many as you can into the jar. Seal the jar and leave it on the windowsill for 2 weeks.

Liquid will start to come out of the lemons and should reach about halfway up the jar by the end of the fortnight. Open the jar and push everything down with a spoon (not your hands), then cover the lemons with olive oil and seal the jar again. Leave to rest in a dark place for at least a month before use. Once opened, these will keep for about a month at room temperature, or up to 3 months if you store them in the fridge.

Preserved lemons are used for cooking, rather than as a condiment or garnish. When you require one, you will need to pull it out carefully, using a pair of tongs or a fork (not your hands, so as not to contaminate the rest of the batch). Cut it open to remove the inner flesh and seeds—discard these and use the lemon skin only for the recipe.

Preserved lemon slices

4 small unwaxed lemons

3½ tbsp salt

1¼ tsp chili flakes

enough olive oil to cover

Halve the lemons and slice as thinly as you can—you can use a food processor blade or a mandoline. Remove any seeds you come across. Place the slices in a bowl and sprinkle with the salt and chili flakes. Allow to sit for 30 minutes at room temperature.

Mix again, then push the lemon slices into a sterilized jar so that they are tightly packed with all the liquid that accumulated in the bowl. Cover with olive oil and seal the jar. These will be ready to use the next day, but will improve with time. Once opened, store in the fridge and use within a month.

When you come to cook with them, just take as much as you need for the recipe. Chop and use the entire slice—you don’t have to discard the flesh as you do for whole preserved lemons. The slices can be eaten as a relish with fish or chicken dishes, and you also can use them mixed with mayonnaise and harissa to accompany a great chicken or tuna sandwich.

Tahini

The quality of your tahini depends hugely on the type of tahini paste you use. We use Al-Yaman from Lebanon, which is delicious, but if you are lucky enough to find any of the Palestinian varieties, especially the Prince and Dove brands, you are in for a treat. The best tahini we’ve ever had is Altan Manisalı from Turkey—it is available from Namlı, the wonderful deli in the Egyptian market in Istanbul, if you are ever in the area. As a rule you are looking for something from Lebanon, Palestine or Turkey. We didn’t like the Greek tahini we tried, nor the health-food shop variants. Avoid whole or black sesame tahini. We make our tahini in a food processor, as it gives a smooth, airy, mousse-like texture, but you can achieve good results with a bowl, a spoon and some wrist action.

Will yield about 8 oz/240g

½ cup/125g tahini paste

1 clove of garlic, peeled and minced

a pinch of salt, plus more to taste

juice of 1 lemon, plus more to taste

about ½ cup/120ml water

Place the tahini, minced garlic, salt and lemon juice in a bowl or food processor, add half the water and mix. It will go thick and pasty but don’t fear—just continue adding water while mixing until it loosens up to a creamy texture. Don’t be tempted to add too much water as the mixture will go runny, but if this happens, you can always bring it back with a little extra tahini paste. Taste and adjust the salt and lemon to suit your taste buds. You can keep tahini in an airtight container in the fridge for 2–3 days, but it will thicken and the flavor may need adjusting with a little more salt and/or lemon. As a result we think it is best to make it and eat it the same day—fresh is best.

Zehug

This delicious preparation is at the heart of Yemeni cooking and eating—Yemenis travelling abroad have been known to take a jar with them, as food is not considered palatable without it. Traditionally it is pounded to a paste on a special grinding stone. Alternatively, if you prepare industrial quantities as some families do, a meat grinder works well. You can use a food processor to produce good results too, but it’s worth making this with a pestle and mortar at least once, as it’s very satisfying.

Will yield about 7 oz/200g

2 bunches of cilantro, washed well

1 green chili

2 cloves of garlic

a pinch of salt

½ tsp ground cardamom pods (here)

1 small tomato, diced

2½ tbsp olive oil

Grind all the ingredients apart from the olive oil together to form a thick, textured paste. Then use a spoon to stir in 1 tablespoon of olive oil. Scoop the paste into a small jar and top with the remaining olive oil—this will help preserve the green color and stop the paste oxidizing. Use within a week. Try it on all your food; it will add a touch of spice to every dish.

Everything

So named because we use it on everything. It is always in our kitchen. This simple condiment is traditionally served with hummus, vibrant against the creamy comfort of the dip, and though it is a mix of some very potent ingredients, they somehow balance each other to create a very mellow, interesting result. Sweet and sour, hot and earthy, it has everything you need. It works with so many things from salads to steak, and is wonderful on simply roasted fish. Remove the seeds from the chilies for a very mild result, or leave them in if you like a bit more bite.

3 cloves of garlic, peeled and finely chopped or crushed

½ small red chili, very finely chopped

½ small green chili, very finely chopped

¼ tsp ground cumin

¼ tsp salt

1 tsp honey

juice of 1 lemon

Mix all the ingredients together in a bowl and leave for 10 minutes or so. The lemon will “cook” the chili and garlic a bit, the honey rounds the flavor and the cumin grounds it. This will keep for 2–3 days if stored in an airtight container in the fridge, but the flavor will mellow the longer you keep it.

Meshwiya & matbucha

Worth mentioning here are meshwiya and matbucha, meaning “roasted” and “cooked” in Arabic. They are two preparations made with the same ingredients, more or less, but one is roasted and one cooked (as it says on the tin). Their recipes are tied to specific dishes in this book—check out octopus in meshwiya sauce (here) and matbucha (here)—but in the restaurant we use them for pretty much everything, as should you.