Salted lemons with spices for Moroccan cuisine
Most often, salted lemons are used in Moroccan cuisine, especially for traditional tagines. There are very simple recipes where there is nothing else besides lemons and salt, but my favorite is lemons with the addition of various spices, especially fennel seeds. You will need 1 large jar with a lid. I had a half liter.
Ingredients
- lemons, how much will fit in a jar, tightly (it took me 11 pieces, but I specifically bought small and thin-skinned ones)
- about 600 g coarse sea salt
- 1 st. l. topped with coriander seeds
- 1 st. l. fennel seed
- 1 st. l. black peppercorns
- 6-7 bay leaves
- 1 st. l. dried thyme
Cooking
Step 1
Wash lemons thoroughly, preferably with a sponge. Ideally, if possible, buy organic lemons that definitely have the skin untreated.
Step 2
Pour fennel seeds, pepper, coriander and cinnamon on a towel, twist the bag and hit it with a rolling pin several times to crush it a little. Pour salt into a deep bowl, add our spices to it.
Step 3
Add dried thyme and chopped bay leaf to the salt. Mix.
Step 4
Cut the lemons first in half, not completely, then rotate 90 degrees and in half again, not completely. Get such "sockets"
Step 5
Pour a small layer of aromatic salt into the jar. Then we dip our lemons into a bowl of salt, stuff them with this salt and begin to press them very hard and put them in a jar as tightly as possible. Periodically sprinkle with salt. And so on until the end. Sprinkle some more salt on top. Here it is very important to squeeze them out so that there is essentially no pulp left in the lemons. Otherwise, in a month you will get something smelly and slimy. And the lemon juice should cover the entire surface. If it is not squeezed out enough from the lemons, then squeeze more from the fresh lemons.
Step 6
Close the lid, refrigerate and leave for two weeks.