Wednesday, January 31, 2007
When we need a hit of freshness to punch up our winter cooking, we count on lemons and limes.
But trendy produce aisles are offering new takes on those old standbys. If you're looking to add instant exoticism to your flavor palette, pass by the familiar piles of garden-variety citrus and look for some real excitement: Meyer lemons and kaffir lime leaves.
But beware: Once you've tried them, you'll find no substitute for their unique fragrance and flavor. Each is worth the trip to a specialty market; either will wake up your nose and pique your palate in these drear winter days.
The first time I encountered kaffir lime leaves at a market, I furtively filched one of the strange double leaves and carried it around with me all day, at intervals rubbing it and inhaling its fragrance like a drug.
Get a taste
Click here for the following recipes, which make the most of fresh citrus flavor:
• Meyer lemon, gorgonzola and arugula pizza
• Meyer lemon and onion relish
• Lemongrass-coconut chicken soup with kaffir lime
• Quick Thai curry
• Rapini risotto with Meyer lemon
I came later to Meyer lemons, but now I hoard the gorgeous golden orbs that seem to glow among the leaves of the Meyer lemon tree I bought last summer — safely sheltered indoors these winter days.
The Meyer lemon is thought to be a hybrid of a regular lemon and a mandarin orange, and its ancestry makes it sweeter, plumper, thinner-skinned and generally larger than its familiar relative.
Cut open the rich yellow-gold fruit, and its heady, almost herbal aroma lets you know immediately that this is no ordinary lemon. To me, it smells as I imagine a lemon would smell if it grew wild in Greece, but it's actually a native of China, brought to California — where it's now grown commercially — from the Peking region in the early 1900s by a botanical collector and adventurer named Frank Meyer.
The kaffir lime leaf, a native of Southeast Asia also grown in California, offers a similar intensity of fragrance. The kaffir — called makrut lime in Thailand — is indeed a member of the lime family, but it's the leaf that's most often used, rather than the knobby fruit, which doesn't produce much juice.
Pick up one of the shiny deep-green leaves and you'll likely do a double take, as it looks like two leaves stuck together. Bring it to your nose, and the herbal fragrance, as Seattle spice authority Tony Hill puts it, will "knock you back with a lime punch."
"It's a very tropical, tart citrus-lime smell," says Fort Worth, Texas, Central Market Southlake executive chef Glenn Terrell, whose global cuisine is colored strongly by Asian influences. Terrell, who says the pronounced scent reminds him of Froot Loops cereal, considers kaffir lime an essential in the Asian pantry, for Thai curry pastes as well as seafood and chicken soups: "It adds that pop."
"Every culture has some signature flavors that define its cuisine," writes Hill in "The Contemporary Encyclopedia of Herbs & Spices" (Wiley, $45). "For Southeast Asian populations, you cannot get more authentic than kaffir lime. The electric perfume of the fresh plants is unique to the roadside stalls serving soups and curries everywhere, and the taste is something not readily duplicated with any substitute."
American cooks may find the Meyer lemon the more versatile of these two citrus ingredients, as Meyer lemons can be used everywhere regular lemons can and in some ways they can't.
It was in desserts that American foodies first began to rediscover Meyer lemons in the 1970s — when Berkeley's seminal Chez Panisse restaurant started cooking with fruit from friends' and neighbors' back yards — but I think its sweetness and complexity makes it even better in savory dishes.
Its thin skin and lower acid content means you can slice it whole, rind and all, for cooking. I love to slice Meyer lemons and braise them with Belgian endive for a rustic-elegant side dish or to roast them with root vegetables such as onions and potatoes.
But as you become more familiar with the kaffir lime leaf, you'll come up with plenty of uses for it, too. It has a wonderful affinity for coconut, for example, and works well in almost any recipe calling for canned coconut milk.
After all, though kaffir limes may seem exotic to American cooks, Terrell reminds us that in Southeast Asia, "they're a very simple, down-to-earth, ordinary ingredient, like salt and pepper to us."
Lemon, lime tips
Meyer lemon tips
• Buying and storing: Meyer lemons' peak season is January through March. Check gourmet markets for them, although occasionally you'll come across them in the produce sections of some of the larger supermarket chains. We found them recently at Whole Foods for $2.49 a pound, but prices are expected to go up after last week's icy weather in California.
Look for deeply colored yellow-gold fruit that has no brown or bruised spots. Because Meyer lemons have thinner skin than regular lemons, they should feel softer than a regular lemon. They are a little more easily bruised, so try to avoid storing them on top of each other or underneath other heavy produce. Keep them refrigerated.
• Using: A mandoline is handy for thin-slicing whole Meyer lemons, but be sure to pick through the slices afterward and remove the seeds.
Some cooking ideas:
• Substitute Meyers for regular lemons in any dessert recipe, but be aware that they are sweeter and thus may require less sugar for the proper tartness. They make wonderful lemon curd.
• Mash the grated zest into softened butter, form into a roll and refrigerate or freeze; use the butter to spread on crackers for smoked-salmon canapes, to top quick fish dishes or even to melt atop pancakes or waffles.
• Stir the zest into a rice pilaf or risotto, as in the accompanying recipe.
• If roasting a whole chicken or bone-in, skin-on chicken pieces, loosen the skin with your hand so you can paint the flesh underneath the skin with Dijon or honey mustard; then stuff thin Meyer lemon slices under the skin before roasting. Or layer Meyer slices atop boneless, skinless chicken breasts before baking or roasting.
• Oven-roast fish fillets or whole fish atop a melange of thinly sliced Meyer lemons and onions; overlap more lemon slices atop the fish for a colorful visual presentation.
• Flavor martinis with Meyer lemon juice and peel.
Kaffir lime tips
• Buying and storing: "At any Asian market you can get a quarter-ounce for about a buck," says Central Market Southlake executive chef Glenn Terrell. Gourmet markets sometimes stock them as well.
When shopping, look for shiny leaves that are a rich green. The leaves should be intensely fragrant and flexible, not brittle, with no yellow or brown spots.
• Using: Because the leaves are somewhat fibrous, Terrell notes that you should sliver them very finely, into "hair-thin" fine shreds (stack them to make the slivering quicker). And because "they lose their intensity quickly," he suggests adding kaffir lime leaves toward the end of cooking "as a brightener, a finishing ingredient." Some ideas:
• Sprinkle in very finely slivered leaves along with mint for a winter fruit salad of pineapple chunks, mandarin and orange segments; add grated coconut and you'll have an updated, Asian-scented version of ambrosia.
• For an Asian take on mussels, add the chopped leaves along with grated ginger to coconut milk and chicken stock for the mussel steaming liquid.
• Add the slivered leaves to any canned or packaged Asian-style soup or noodle entree for authentic made-from-scratch flavor.
• Infuse them with sugar and water into a simple syrup for use in cocktails and to flavor desserts.
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