By Marc
Where citrus grows, winter can be a time to preserve the bounty by making pickles and preserves. In each of the last few years, I have spent a day or two making Indian lemon pickles: pieces of lemon (peel and all) bathed in a spicy, salty, oily sauce.
So far I have made two different pickles using the lemons from my backyard tree. These pickles are not completely local because the salt, spices and oil are produced in some location that is outside my 100-mile circle. To estimate their local percentage, I weighed each ingredient and found that about 75% of the weight was local (lemons) with the remaining 25% being non-local (salt, oil and spices) .
The first lemon pickle was from Dakshin by Chandra Padmanabhan, a South Indian vegetarian cookbook. The recipe starts with whole lemons in a saucepan covered with water, and then boiled for 10-15 minutes until they are soft. After allowing them to cool, I cut them into quarters (using scissors). I fried the spices (fenugreek seeds, brown mustard seeds, turmeric), chilies, and ginger in oil for a few minutes, then poured in the lemons and some water. The first photo shows the lemon addition in progress. 
I wish I had made a videotape with audio, because it was quite an experience: bright yellow lemons engulfed by bubbling red oil and a tremendous hissing sound. After the excitement died down, I added the salt and cooked the mixture for few more minutes to fully heat the lemons. Then I turned off the heat, let the mixture cool slightly, and carefully spooned it into sterilized bottles. After fully cooling, I put the pickles into the refrigerator, where they keep seemingly forever.
The second lemon pickle -- from Classic Indian Cooking by Julie Sahni -- presented far less burn risk, but required far more patience. I started by dry roasting some mustard seeds, fenugreek seeds, red pepper, dried red chilies, turmeric, and asafoetida. After the spice mixture cooled, I ground it into a powder (I use a coffee grinder that is for nothing but spices), and added it to a large quantity of salt. I washed the lemons and sliced them into 8 pieces. Next, I cooked everything briefly in hot oil, allowed the mixture to cool slightly, and poured it into a large sterilized jar. Over the next fifteen days, I stirred it once per day. The end result is an intensely fragrant mixture of lemon slices, chilies, spices, salt and oil, with a beautiful blend of colors.
The lemon pickles add a lot of zip to lentils, vegetable curry and other Indian dishes. They also are great additions to robust winter greens like kale or collards -- the sparkle and bite of the lemon is a perfect foil for the earthiness of the greens. I have also been advised that they make a good topping for baked tofu.
In future months, I hope to try some other citrus preserves, perhaps a 100% local orange preserve or my own local version of the Asian citron-honey tea (using lemons and oranges). Any suggestions?
Marc lives in Berkeley, California and writes Mental Masala, an enticing blend of food, history, travel, and nature.
