Fragrant yellow-sided lemon is a frequent guest in our kitchen and a real magician. It is responsible for aroma, freshness, brightness and balance of flavors. We have collected 10 of the most useful secrets this sunny fruit.
1. One medium lemon (90 g) will make about 2 tsp. zest and 8-10 tbsp. l. juice.
2. The most fragrant part of a lemon is the zest. You need to cut it off without white cotton wool, as it is very bitter. This is especially important when it comes to baking.
3. The next time you freeze ice in a cube mold, put a couple of drops of lemon juice into each water cell. Lemon ice is useful for cocktails, lemonades or iced tea. A couple of cubes fragrant ice you can also throw it into hot tea, instead of diluting it with water or when you don’t have a lemon on hand.
4. If you only need a couple of drops of lemon juice, pierce the lemon with a skewer in one or two places and squeeze out the right amount of juice. Then wrap the lemon in clingfilm or put it in an airtight container, so it will last much longer than cut.
5. Lemon at room temperature gives more juice than from the refrigerator. Take it out ahead of time so it has time to warm up a bit. There will be even more juice if you first massage the lemon a little with your hands, and then squeeze the juice.
6. The old secret of Indian housewives: if you want to cook crumbly rice, add a little lemon juice to the water (1-2 teaspoons). He will not let the rice stick together and make them snow-white.
7. The breast is the leanest and healthiest part of the chicken, but also the most capricious. Drying white meat is as easy as shelling pears, but there is one secret. Before cooking, rub the breast with a slice of lemon - the meat will turn out more juicy and tender. 
8. Lemons, like many other fruits, are often waxed. To remove it (for example, when you need the zest), dip the lemons for a few seconds in boiling water, and then wipe thoroughly with a napkin. For reliability, you can also rinse with soap.
9. The smaller the zest, the stronger the flavor. Rub the zest right before use, otherwise all the most valuable will disappear. If you need to use lemon juice and zest in the same recipe, grate the zest first and then squeeze the juice.
10. Put the excess zest in sugar or sea salt in flakes. Lemon sugar will give a fragrant citrus note creamy desserts, pastries, cookies, homemade ice cream or sorbet, tea and lemonade.
Lemon salt is useful for risotto (for example, with seafood), any fish dishes, salad dressings, and also for sprinkling vegetables before roasting (for example, cauliflower) or salt the water before cooking (e.g. for pasta or asparagus).
Lemon zest is a great flavoring for dough. Great to add to pies, cookies, and other homemade baked goods.
PREPARING THE LEMON ZEST
From scalded with boiling water and wiped dry oranges or lemons, remove the zest - the outer fragrant shell,. You can remove the zest from citrus fruits with a fine grater or a piece of refined sugar, after sprinkling a little lemon or orange with fine sugar and rubbing it over the surface with your hands.
It is necessary to store the peeled zest in syrup or by mixing it with granulated sugar or powdered sugar (the mixture should have a paste density).
Before using in baking, the zest is poured with warm water, squeezed through gauze, and these marcs are used as a flavoring for dough for pies and various fillings.
Orange and lemon zest will lose their bitterness if citrus fruits are kept in boiling water for 4-5 minutes. At the same time, the lemon will give more juice and become more fragrant.
The aroma of non-bitter zest can be enhanced if the lemon is simply scalded with boiling water before removing the zest.
If half a lemon is used according to the pie recipe, then you can save the remaining half for later as follows: put 5-6 drops of vinegar on a saucer, put a lemon on it cut down and cover with a tea cup on top. So it keeps for quite a long time.
Lemon or orange peels, when only juice and pulp are used, can be cut, dried and stored in a dry glass jar with a lid. Then they can be ground and used instead of zest.
CANDIED FRUIT
Candied fruits are used mainly for sweet fillings or in butter dough, or eaten simply as a treat.
Candied fruits can be prepared both from citrus fruits and from other berries or fruits. Most often they are made from the peels of oranges and lemons.
For their preparation, candied peels are soaked in cold water for 3-4 days, periodically changing the water, and then boiled in sugar syrup.
PREPARATION OF CANDIED
Pass fresh citrus peels (each type separately or mixed together, for example, lemons with oranges) through a meat grinder, sprinkle with fine sugar, laying in layers in a glass jar and compacting each layer, and refrigerate for 3-4 days.
Then transfer the mixture to an enameled pan and cook over low heat until the mass thickens well.
You need to store ready-made candied fruits in the refrigerator in a closed glass jar.
When preparing candied fruits from fruits, they are boiled in a thick sugar syrup, like jam, and they are not removed from the syrup so that they dry out and candied.
Lemon is one of the most common citrus fruits. But at the same time, unlike oranges, tangerines and grapefruits, lemon is primarily valued not for its taste, but for its healing properties. As soon as you get sick, you are reminded: be sure to drink tea with lemon. This citrus fruit is brought to the hospital for each patient, this is already a classic of the genre on a par with oranges. Lemon juice is used in many diets, as well as home and folk beauty recipes. So, lemon - how it can be useful to us, how to choose it, and when and to whom it is not recommended to use lemons.
What is in a lemon?
organic acids.
Phytoncides.
Flavonoids.
Riboflavin.
Hesperidin.
Sesquiterpenes.
Calcium.
Cellulose.
Carotene.
Bitter substances and oil (in the pits).
Vitamin C.
Vitamin A, D, E, B1, B2, B9, PP.
In 100 grams fresh lemon contains 40 mg of vitamin C.
Benefits of Lemon and Lemon Juice
The composition of the lemon includes a huge amount of ascorbic acid. Therefore, lemon juice is an excellent remedy:
o to strengthen the immune system;
o Lemon juice helps lower blood sugar levels;
o has antipyretic properties;
o tones and energizes the body.
Also, lemon zest and juice have a high antiseptic effect. Rinsing the mouth with diluted lemon juice or brewed zest can even cure purulent sore throat.
Beneficial lemon juice also acts in urolithiasis. According to doctors, sand and small stones can dissolve with prolonged use of lemon juice.
Lemon juice is indispensable for removing toxins, normalizing metabolism and treating obesity.
Lemon also helps with an old cough.
But the true panacea is lemon juice to strengthen and rejuvenate the walls of blood vessels. Citrine, which is part of this juice, in combination with ascorbic acid, not only strengthens capillaries, veins and arteries, but also makes them elastic. Therefore, the periodic use of lemon in food is the prevention of most vascular diseases.
Lemon harm
Lemon is a strong allergen, like all citrus fruits. Therefore, you should not use it in very large quantities. Also allergic reaction can provoke chemicals used to treat lemons during cultivation.
Concentrated lemon juice is harmful to tooth enamel, it destroys it, especially if it enters the oral cavity along with sugar.
Citric acid strongly irritates the gastric mucosa and can provoke an exacerbation of gastritis or peptic ulcer of the stomach and duodenum, so people suffering from these diseases should use lemon very carefully, and best of all, exclude it from the diet. This fruit is also not recommended for people suffering from pancreatitis. Lemon juice often provokes heartburn.
With inflammation in the oral cavity and pharynx, rinsing with undiluted lemon juice can lead not only to irritation, pain, but even to bleeding and prolonged healing.
Hypertensive patients should also treat this fruit with caution, because it can increase blood pressure.
Lemon should not be given to children under two years of age, because children are often allergic to lemon juice, and it also has a negative effect on the mucous membrane of the child's stomach.
Pregnant and lactating mothers should be careful.
How to choose a lemon
Lemons keep for a very long time if you choose them correctly. The bright color of the peel does not always indicate the maturity of the fruit.
If the peel of a lemon is shiny and the fruit is hard to the touch, then it is unripe and will be stored for a long time, such lemons are more acidic than ripe ones.
If the lemon is a little soft and the peel is matte, then you have a ripe fruit in front of you, it will be stored for only a few days.
Sometimes lemons are supercooled during transportation, you can immediately distinguish them by the presence of small brown spots on the peel, such lemons have a bitter aftertaste.
How to check the quality of a lemon
Even when buying, pay attention to the appearance of the fruit. It should be dense, the skin is shiny, without signs of decay, damage, compaction and brown spots.
Do you know why a lemon can be bitter? Because either he was "stuffed" with antibiotics for more long storage, or he is frozen, or not yet ripe.
In the cut, the film should fit snugly against the slices.
Thick-skinned lemons have more vitamins than thin-skinned ones, since the subcutaneous white layer (albedo), which is considered the most tasteless, has the highest concentration of bioflavonoids that help the absorption of vitamin C, and vitamin C itself.
How to use correctly
Water with lemon
To get the most benefit from lemon water, it should be prepared and taken as follows:
Wash 1 lemon and grind it, along with the peel, in a blender or food processor.
Add one tablespoon to a glass of boiled water and drink.
You need to take such a drink at least 3-4 times a day half an hour before meals.
Please note that the water should not be hotter than 50 degrees. Otherwise, half useful substances(and primarily ascorbic acid) will simply be destroyed.
Tea with lemon
Tea with lemon should also be prepared in a completely different way to which we are accustomed. The main difference in the preparation of such a drink is the addition of lemon juice only to the cooled tea. Otherwise, as in the case of lemon water, most of the nutrients will be lost.
The second secret is that tea with lemon is better to prepare green. It is this combination of beneficial properties that creates a drink that can work wonders. Normalization of pressure, prevention of respiratory diseases, rejuvenation of body cells and stable weight loss - this is an incomplete list of what the use of green tea with lemon guarantees.
Lemon has beneficial properties, but also harmful properties this fruit has no less. When using lemon or its juice, observe the measure.
A few words about the benefits of lemon
Lemon is a storehouse of all kinds of useful substances necessary for a person. In addition to the notorious vitamin C, for which the fruit is especially valued, it contains vitamins A, almost the entire range of vitamin B (with the exception of B12), vitamin E, which is so necessary to maintain vigor and youthfulness of the body, as well as PP, which is necessary for redox processes. in the body.
Such macro- and microelements as calcium, potassium, sodium, magnesium, as well as iron, zinc, manganese (the list is endless) elevate yellow citrus to the utility pedestal. It is no secret that other fruits and berries contain no less amount of substances necessary for the body, but only lemon has an excellent protective agent - a thick peel - which allows you to keep all the vitamins inside for a long time after the fruit has been removed from the tree.
First of all, the sour fruit is eaten. There is it just like an apple, biting off pieces, it is unlikely to work out, but it is dosed to use the fruit for cooking various dishes just necessary. Put a piece in sweet tea, eat a glass of cognac with a candied slice, use in cooking fish dishes or confectionery, as well as making real refreshing lemonade - this is a far from complete list of using lemon as an addition to your favorite foods.
But the scope of the fruits of the lemon tree is much wider than the use in cooking.
- Lemon juice is able to fight stains on clothes and excessive pigmentation on the skin. Diluted in water, the juice can add shine to hair and protect nails from brittleness. In small doses, it helps to regulate digestion, and makes it possible to get rid of extra pounds.
- Lemon zest is a real panacea for people suffering from diseases of the respiratory system, citrus peel is especially good for sore throats. In addition, the zest is a mild aphrodisiac, so the essential oils contained in the lemon peel are actively used in perfumery.
- Lemon as a whole is excellent at fighting the symptoms of colds. In combination with a hot drink, it effectively reduces the temperature, thanks to its diaphoretic properties, and also relieves drowsiness and lethargy.
It's no secret that not all sour citrus fruits lying in even rows in the store are useful and have outstanding healing properties. Considering that citrus is practically not grown in our country and most of the fruits are brought from abroad, it is necessary to buy a lemon only after making sure that it is fresh, safe and free from mechanical damage.
The only indicator that you can focus on when buying a citrus is its peel. It is its color, texture and overall appearance that can suggest what is hidden inside the fruit.
- Color. The bright specific shade characteristic of the zest of the fruit does not always indicate that the lemon is ripe. The degree of maturity is best determined by the luster: the greenish fruit has a slightly matte surface, while the mature product shines like polished. If you are going to store fruit for a long time, it is better to purchase an unripe copy, it will not deteriorate longer, especially if you follow the correct storage conditions.
- The size. The quality of a lemon is completely independent of the size of the fruit. The dimensions and shape of the fruit are associated only with the type of tree from which it was plucked. Therefore, the size of the product is not at all an indicator of its advantage.
- Density. In order to determine the ripeness of the fruit, it is necessary to press firmly on the fruit with your finger and check the springy properties of the peel. If the skin is difficult to deform - you have an unripe specimen in front of you, if the dent quickly diverges - the fruit is ripe, if the hole does not straighten out, and the lemon is sluggish and soft to the touch - you have an overripe fruit that will not lie in the refrigerator for two days, and certainly not will bring no benefit when eaten.
- Peel thickness. It is not easy to determine the thickness of a lemon peel by eye, but it is possible. Thick-skinned fruits have a bumpy and rougher surface, while smooth and tender lemons are more likely to be thin-skinned. A thick peel keeps everything safer beneficial features, sealing them inside, however, a thin membrane is evidence that the lemon tree has recently begun to bear fruit and the amount of vitamins in it is much higher than in "older" lemons. Thus, the choice should be made by the buyer himself, guided by his preferences.
- Defects. If black blotches or dark spots are clearly visible on the skin of the fruit, this indicates that the citrus was frozen during transportation or during storage. Therefore, if you are going to choose a non-bitter lemon, you need to avoid fruits with such defects.
Storage rules
Even a properly selected lemon will not have time to please you if you do not follow the basic rules for its storage:
- Do not put lemon in the freezer.
- Store on the bottom shelf or on the refrigerator door.
- Do not leave a cut lemon in the refrigerator for more than a day.
- If you come across a lemon with bitterness, you need to pour boiling water over the fruit.
If you prefer to grow tasty and healthy lemons at home and not depend on the assortment offered in a store or supermarket, then you need to choose the right bud for grafting a lemon. This is how you can grow a whole tree from one small bone and enjoy delicious fruits all year round.
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