When life gives you Meyer lemons....

You gotta love Meyer Lemons. They have some of the acidity of a regular lemon, but toned down to make it a little less assertive and more versatile by adding sweetness and bringing it closer to a fruit without loosing the personality that makes it a lemon.

The three beautiful lemons shown in the picture above were given to me by Kathleen, a friend and neighbor who happens to have a Meyer Lemon tree in her house down south. Talk about a convenience. I have been buying Meyer lemons for a while, mostly to make preserved lemons, a common condiment in northern Africa. You can see a jar in the back that I made some time ago and that is still bringing great flavor to my kitchen.

So, given these tree lemons my next task was thinking of what to do. The possibilities are truly endless. These lemons have a lot of juice and you really want to use them in a way that they pop or will miss the subtlety of using these instead of regular lemons. After some web searches I settled on a few top recipes. I decided to stretch the three lemons to get as many dishes from them as possible, using both the zest and the juice.

The first recipe (greatly modified to fit our taste and available ingredients was Tagliatelle with Asparagus and Brussels Sprouts with a Meyer Lemon and Yogurt sauce topped with Aged Sheep Cheese. For this Sharon and I invited our friends Amy and Patti Mayonnaise. I have to say, this was a hit. We chose an egg pasta and used loose Brussels Sprout leaves to make the dish lighter than the whole vegetable would have made it. We received requests for an encore of this dish some time soon.

The second dish was one I have been trying to make for some time: barley risotto. So I went for a Pan Fried Walleye with a Lemon Butter Sauce and Meyer Lemon Barley Risotto. I will admit that the lemon butter did not turn out great and in fact looked more like melted butter than anything else. The risotto anyway was terrific. Chewier than arborio rice, the barley gives it a nice earthy flavor. I used some more of my Brussels sprouts, but this time they I cut them in half and then made a chiffonade with them. The Walleye was topped with some bright red pickled peppers that gave a tiny bit of heat but mostly, and thanks to their acidity, brought the lemon flavor forward.

I have not yet tried the third dish, but with Sunday and my week long vacation almost over, I wanted to get this post out. The plan is to make Spaghetti with Meyer Lemon Zest and Crunchy Sea Salt. Very much looking forward to trying that one.

Our thanks go to Kathleen for dropping those beautiful lemons at our door. I hope we made them justice.