Pickled Lemons

Pickled lemons are bright and bold and bring a freshness to an assortment of dishes such as fish, chicken, steamed veggies, salad, and sandwiches. Your imagination is the limit.

This recipe is from Jerusalem: A Cookbook by Yotam Ottolenghi and Sami Tamimi.

You can use the lemon pickles as a quicker alternative to preserved lemons. The original recipe says to let them sit overnight, but I’ve used them within a few minutes of mixing them. Don’t let a lack of time prevent you from using these guys.

Pickled Lemons Ingredients
½ red chile
1 Tbl lemon juice
3 lemons
3 Tbl sugar
¾ tsp salt
2 tsp minced garlic
1 tsp paprika
¼ tsp cumin
½ tsp turmeric

Pickled Lemons Directions
Take half of a red chile and remove the seed head. Slice the pepper from pole to pole as finely as you can then do that in the opposite direction. Run your knife back and forth over the chopped chile to get it even smaller.

Put the chopped chile into a bowl with 1 Tbl lemon juice.

Take 3 lemons and cut them in 1/2 them pole to pole. Put the halves cut side down on a chopping board and slice them around the equator as thinly as possible. You should end up with thin semi-circles. 

Add the cut lemons to the bowl with 3 Tbl sugar, ¾ tsp salt, 2 tsp minced garlic, 1 tsp paprika, ¼ tsp cumin, and ½ tsp turmeric. Take your hands and mix the ingredients. Cover the bowl in plastic wrap overnight.

Transfer the contents to a jar and place in the refrigerator.