Lemon Pickle - Lemon in Salt

#LemonPickle - Lemon in Salt : Lemon is widely used through out the world for its juice which is rich in citric acid. The presence of this acid gives sour taste to the juice. The juice is used in recipes and the oily aromatic rind [ skin ] is usually discarded. The freshly grated rinds are sometimes used in some special dishes.
Generally pickles are made from lemon during its season. Preserving lemon with salt is a common practice followed by our grand mothers and mothers.
These preserved lemons are also a great remedy for stomach disorder and nausea. If you take a pinch of pickled lemon during nausea, it relieves you from any discomfort. When you are affected by fever, your tongue becomes tasteless and you may feel bitterness while consuming food.
During fever if you try to consume porridge or rasam rice along with lemon pickle, it gives a soothing effect to your tongue and allows you to consume more food.
So it is always advisable to prepare and save salted lemon at home.
Now let me explain here the way to pickle lemon in salt.

Ingredients :
Lemon
Sea Salt

Method :
Clean and dry a bottle just enough to keep the lemon inside.
Keep aside.

Wash lemons thoroughly and pat dry with a clean cloth.
Then slit the lemon vertically from top to bottom till 3/4 th of its height.
In the same way cut diagonally also.
Cut all the lemons in this way into four quarters.

After cutting all the lemons keep them on a plate.
If the lemon is slightly big in size then make one more slit.
Now fill the slits with  sea salt as much as possible.

After stuffing with salt arrange lemons upright inside the bottle. Close with a lid. Allow to stand in this way for 3 to 4 days.

After a day or two juice oozes out of lemon dissolving the salt.

This water collects at the bottom of the bottle.
After third or fourth day onward, every day shake the bottle once or twice and keep aside.
Day by day the lemon looses its color and become dark in color.
After a month the lemon skin becomes tender.
The salty water collected at the bottom of the bottle becomes viscous and gooey.

The salted lemon or lemon pickle is ready to consume after a month.
Have it while consuming porridge and also with curd rice.

Note :
After fifteen days take out the salted lemons from the bottle and dry in the Sun. Then in the evening again place the lemon into the same bottle in its own salt water. Keep doing this until the water has been completely used up and lemon completely dries up. The salt crystallizes on the lemon and becomes pale in color.
Then it can be stored in a clean dry bottle for years together.

But I always allow it to cure in its own salt water without drying them in the Sun.




Other pickle recipes you might like to try

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