Fermented lemons, Fatima’s mother’s recipe found in Mimine’s cookbook!
Preparation
For a 3L jar, use approximately 12 large lemons. Consume within 1 to 2 months.
Ingredients
- 12 organic yellow lemons
- 24 teaspoons of coarse salt
- 1 bay tree leaf
- 1 sprig of thyme
- 3 or 4 small chilli peppers
- A little olive oil
Directions
- Clean the jar with hot water and dry it.
- Boil a large pot of water for 5 minutes, which you will use to fill your jar, then leave to cool.
- Wash your lemons and cut them crosswise, making sure not to cut them completely (a quarter of the lemon uncut) so that you can open them like flowers.
- Take the first lemon, open it and pour two teaspoons of coarse salt into the center, in the heart of its quarters. Compress it passionately, close the lemon and put it in the jar.
- Repeat the same operation for all the other lemons and place them in the jar one after the other, squeezing them as tightly as possible.
- Intersperse the bay leaf and thyme between the lemons, as well as the chilli peppers.
- Carefully pour the boiled water into the jar, but do not fill it completely. Leave a margin of around 2cm and finish filling it with olive oil.
- Close the jar filled with lemons by closing the lid tightly and turn it upside down, leaving it to rest upside down for 24 hours.
- The next day, put the jar right side up and let the lemons marinate for a month or better, two months, before consuming them.
Fermented in this way, these lemons can be stored in ambient air for 1 year, if the jar is tightly closed. Once the jar is opened, store the lemons in the refrigerator.
