TIPS FOR ZESTING AND SQUEEZING LEMONS
If you learn these handy skills for handling lemons, you can store them in your arsenal for years of impressive and efficient kitchen execution. What’s good for the lemon is good for the lime, as they say, so you can apply these techniques to any citrus fruit.
EASY ZESTING
1. Start with an unwaxed, washed lemon (preferably organic) and a citrus zester.
2. Hold the lemon in the palm of your hand from tip to tail, so that one side touches your little finger and the other touches your thumb.
3. Hold the zester against a flat cutting board at an angle, bearing down to hold it steady.
4. With a long, fluid stroke, push the lemon’s peel against the zester from tip to tail while rotating your wrist. Grate only the very outer part of the zest, so that you don’t dig into the white pith under the colored part of the outer lemon skin.
5. Repeat this motion, spinning and making long strokes one next to the other (like mowing a lawn), until you’ve stripped all the oily, aromatic zest from outside the lemon, leaving you with a naked white lemon, which you can then juice as usual.
EASY JUICING
1. Start with room-temperature fruit. If you’re taking the lemons from the refrigerator, plunge them into hot water from the tap and allow them to soak for a few minutes, or put them in the microwave for 15 seconds.
2. Pressing with the flat of your hand, roll the fruit on a hard surface, such as a tabletop. This breaks apart the sections, allowing the individual pulp cells to burst with ease.
3. Cut each lemon lengthwise into quarters or eighths, from tip to tail, then squeeze each section individually between your thumb and forefinger.
4. To harvest every last drop, use the tines of a large fork to scrape inside the peel and break open any last, stubborn cells.