Top Stories » Expert Columns » Profiles & Trends

It would be hard to imagine more versatile ingredients in the kitchen, or more useful ones than the various citrus fruits, especially lemons, limes, and oranges. They add sparkle to foods, can enliven the natural flavors in foods, help preserve delicate foods and keep them from browning, and can be used in both sweet and savory applications. Citrus fruits, in all their many guises and variations, are one of the most popular groups of fruits worldwide, trailing behind only the apple/pear group and bananas. They are valued for their juice, their high acid content, the bright flavors, and for the zest, or the colored part of the rind that is filled with highly flavorful oils. Citrus fruits, especially lemons, pair brilliantly with almost any kind of food and can also be delicious beverages themselves. They are also beautiful and perhaps nothing is more inviting in a kitchen than the sight of a bowl of colorful lemons on the counter. One famous chef I spoke with said that virtually everything that goes out of his kitchen is finished with a spritz of lemon. How exactly lemons became synonymous with a badly made automobile, I can’t say, but fortunately, someone created the adage that when one is handed lemons, make lemonade.

A Culinary Gift
Citrus fruits are unique among fruits because of the way the juice is stored, in small vessels called pulp vesicles. These are held within larger containers called locules (one locule is one segment of an orange). The botanical name for such a fruit is hesperidium. Although the family of citrus fruits includes such things as citron, grapefruit, pomelo, ugli and yuzu, we’ll focus our discussion here on lemons, limes, and oranges — the real workhorses of the kitchen and the bar.

Columbus brought seeds for lemons, limes and oranges with him to the New World on his second voyage. They were ideally suited to the climate and soil throughout the Caribbean and the adjacent mainland, and they have been cultivated ever since. Early settlers in Florida planted orange trees that would be the basis for a huge industry, and the same is true of the early Spanish missionaries in California who brought up orange and lemon cuttings from Mexico. The Meyer lemon, a hybrid between a sweet orange and a sour lemon, was first brought to the United States from China by Frank Meyer in 1908. The citrus industry in California really began as the influence of the missions began to fade, and then in earnest after gold was discovered in 1849. It is said that California produces more lemons than all of Europe combined, and the U.S. and Brazil combine to produce over 40 percent of the world’s citrus crop, although the majority of that is processed rather than eaten as fresh fruit. In fact, a third of all citrus grown in the world goes into frozen concentrated juice.

Using citrus in the kitchen is not only flavorful but can greatly reduce one’s use of salt and other seasonings. The following are some suggested ways in which to use the bright flavor of citrus fruits for everyday cooking.
• Use lemon juice in place of vinegar in vinaigrettes and many sauces.
• Mix orange zest with long grain rice before cooking. Gently sauté the rice/zest mixture for about one minute before adding the cooking liquid.
• Add lemon zest when cooking asparagus, broccoli and other green vegetables.
• Squeeze lemon juice over steaming vegetables for a delicious but low-fat meal option.
• Sauté pork chops in clarified butter with thyme, then add the juice of two oranges to the pan and braise the chops.
• For cocktails calling for a twist, cut the twist off the fruit (orange or lemon) with a channel knife directly over the drink. The spritz of oils onto the surface of the drink will do more to flavor the drink than a dried-out pre-cut twist. Great for a Negroni (orange) or Sidecar (lemon).
• Squeeze fresh lemon juice over sole and other delicate fish fillets when cooking.
• When cooking vegetables in a skillet, finish with a squeeze of lemon.
• Always squeeze fresh lemon over apple slices when making apple pie or cobbler. It keeps the fruit from browning and gives added flavor.
• Pack apple slices for kids’ lunches by cutting them up and squeezing a whole lemon over them before placing them in a baggie. They will look better and the difference in taste is amazing.
• If you can’t take the heat from chiles, add a squeeze of key-lime juice to refried beans with a bit of cumin.
• Combine chopped parsley, lemon zest and chopped garlic for a zesty flavoring for shrimp, stir-fry, and all kinds of vegetables.
• Add a squeeze of lemon to almost any dish at the end for a simple burst of fresh flavor. Often one doesn’t even detect the lemon itself, but the flavors of the dish will sparkle just a bit more. It can actually enhance flavor in the same way as salt.
• Place slices of lemon in small bowls of water to rinse the fingers after messy dishes like barbecue ribs.
• Keep a large bowl of lemons and/or key limes in the kitchen to make the air more fragrant and to have them handy to use whenever needed.

If you would like to comment or send us your feedback on this column, please send e-mail to jmellgren@sbcglobal.net.
Recipes
Lemon-Yogurt-Blue-Cheese Vinaigrette
This has also been one of our favorite ways to dress a salad, but when my wife developed an allergy to vinegars, it became even more useful. You can make this with or without the blue cheese. This is great for heartier lettuces like butter or Bibb lettuce, and it is also good as a dip for vegetables.
Ingredients
3 tablespoons plain yogurt
2 ounces blue cheese
Juice of half to whole lemon (depending on the lemon and the quantity desired)
Extra virgin olive oil
Preparation
Combine the yogurt, blue cheese and lemon juice in a small mixing bowl and whisk together. Slowly pour in the olive oil in a thin, steady stream, whisking all the while. Taste to adjust the quantities and to suit your own taste.

Senegalese Lemon Chicken
This recipe is from Dana Jacobi’s brilliant 12 Best Foods Cookbook (Rodale). It illustrates quite well how lemon can transform a dish. In Senegal, this dish is known as Yassa Chicken.
Serves 4
Ingredients
2 large white onions, thinly sliced
¼ cup chopped flat-leaf parsley
4-5 fresh thyme sprigs, or ½ teaspoon dried
1 bay leaf
1 small clove of garlic, smashed
½ teaspoon salt
6 grinds black pepper
Juice of lemon
2 tablespoons canola oil
1 large skinless whole chicken breast with ribs, cut in 4 pieces (1 ½ pounds)
Preparation
• Place the onions in a large, resealable plastic bag. Add the parsley, thyme, bay leaf, garlic, salt and pepper. Pour in the lemon juice and oil. Seal the bag and shake to coat the onions with the marinade. Add the chicken, reseal, and shake the bag. Refrigerate for two to three hours.
• Remove the chicken from the marinade and pat dry. Coat a deep, medium skillet, with a tight-fitting lid, with cooking spray. Over medium-high heat, brown the chicken on both sides, turning it once, for eight minutes. Remove the chicken to a plate.
• Lift the onions from the marinade and add them to the skillet. Cook, stirring occasionally, until they are limp and brown, but not soft, 10 minutes. Return the chicken to the pan. Pour in the reserved marinade, including the solids. Cover the pan and simmer for 20 minutes. Turn the chicken, cover and continue cooking until the meat is white near the bone, 15 to 20 minutes. Remove bay leaf before serving.