Citrus Season

a sub sale and preserving the season

Welcome back to The Broiler Room. We’ve missed you. We know that everyone and their grandma is launching a Substack right now so it means a lot that you’re spending some of your very in demand attention span with us. We know the internet can be exhausting, particularly this time of year. If you want to slow things down and spend a little more time in the kitchen, we’ve got just the thing for you. We’re currently offering 20% annual subscriptions to our recipes until December 10th which means you get three months of recipes for free just for taking advantage of this deal. Join the club and cook with us.

This week we’re gonna give you a taste of what we’re serving over there by starting a little cooking project with y’all: ✨preserved lemons✨. 

This is an old-school way of making citrus last and remains one of the very best. Right now, citrus is cheap and in season in North America, making this the perfect time to whip up a jar of these. A little salt and time make these lemons taste otherworldly. All the sourness mellows, and the rind and flesh become soft, delicious, and the perfect little something to take your pantry to a whole new level. Chop up a slice of one of the lemons and add them to pasta, blend them into sauces, or toss them with some veggies. You can take as little as you need out of the jar at a time so you’ll always have some laying around. And yes, we’ll share some recipes to help you out. But first! The lemóns. 🤌 

Preserved Lemons

Makes 1 quart jar of lemons and accompanying goodness

1 quart glass jar with lid

9 lemons, meyer or classic, washed, about 1 1/2 pounds

1/2 cup salt

This recipe isn’t super exact so don’t worry too much about getting all the measurements right. It’s more about technique and time. OK, here we go. Cut off the little nubby end on both sides of the lemons, then cut them into 4 sections from the end like you were cutting a cake. Don’t cut all the way to the bottom, though; you still want the slices attached to each other by at least 1/2 inch of uncut citrus. This is the hardest part of the recipe and it’s not even fucking hard. Leave 1 lemon uncut.

Sprinkle about 2 tablespoons of salt into the bottom of the jar. Put around 1 tablespoon of salt  inside each lemon, in the cut-up parts, and kinda rub it around to pack it in.

Place the lemon into the jar. Keep doing this shit and pack the lemons in the jar as tight as you can. Sure, some are gonna spill open and some might even rip a little but it’s cool. Just do your best.

keep packing, there’s too much space in there

When the jar is all packed with lemon, squeeze the juice of the remaining lemon over the top and pack down the lemons again trying to get out any of the air bubbles. Put on the lid and let this all sit overnight.

Sometime the following day check on the lemons and push them down again and get out any remaining air bubbles. They should have released more juice by now so this should be easier. Make sure that there’s enough juice in there to cover all the lemons so that they can pickle in peace. 

Place the jar in a cool spot like your pantry. Check on them every couple of days for 2 weeks, just making sure that all the lemons stay underneath the juice. You can do this, it takes 15 fucking seconds. Stop pretending like this is too much, you haven’t even tried yet. Damn.

After 2 weeks the rinds will be soft and you can stick the jar in the refrigerator and stop babysitting it. They’ll keep for at least 6 months.

We’ll send out another newsletter walking y’all through the rest of this so if you make them this weekend, you’ll be on the same preservation schedule as us. TWO WEEKS STARTING NOW. GO GO GO. 

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gnomes not included

Tomorrow our recipe club is getting a Pecan Cranberry Cookie with Ginger delivered right to their inbox. They’re just sweet enough, perfect for baking up and passing out as gifts to neighbors and friends. Or hiding from your family who can’t appreciate them like you. Your call.

Michelle and Matt