Preserved citrus recipe
I love preserving citrus. The lacto-fermentation rounds out citrus’s citric acid, making the fruits more versatile. And the bitterness of the pith is subdued, allowing you to add preserved citrus skins to switch up a dish’s texture.
Most preserved lemon recipes online aren’t very scientific, so I developed a recipe that is measured in grams and is a bit more repeatable.
This is my recipe for preserved citrus. I made it because I wasn’t satisfied with the lack of ratios in other recipes. The recipes that did have ratios were vacuum-sealed, and I wanted a jar of preserved citrus I could pull from for months.
My preserved sudachi is not barley but I like the label from my former koji container :)
You can use this recipe for preserved limes, preserved meyer lemons, preserved sudachi — you name it. The recipe also allows you to combine multiple citruses (e.g. one for the flesh and the other for the juice), making something like a preserved yuzu recipe a bit more financially viable.
Ingredients
Citrus.
Citrus juice. Buy 1/5 more citrus than you need and reserve it for this step. If preserving an expensive citrus (e.g. yuzu), feel free to sub out the juice of another similar but less expensive citrus.
Salt.
Sugar. This reduces some of the bitterness from the pith.
Instructions
Quarter your citrus. For something very bitter like a meyer lemon, sometimes I remove the pith at this step, too (so I have just the skins and the quartered flesh).
Tare your mason jar to 0 on your scale so we can weigh everything we put in it.
Pack your citrus into the mason jar. Push down to ensure it is tightly packed. You’ll notice that in this packing process you are ‘juicing’ the citrus a bit, and this juice is beginning to submerge the citrus in the jar.
If the citrus is not fully submerged, add more juice (from the reserved citrus).
Note the weight of what is in the jar, then pour out as much of the liquid as you can into a separate container.
Add salt (8% of the weight of what you measured) and sugar (2% of the weight of what you measured) to the reserved juice. Mix it to incorporate completely then add it back to the jar. I created this step because I wasn’t satisfied with how the salt didn’t dissolve enough in existing recipes.
Adjust the contents to again ensure all contents are submerged, keep them submerged with a weight, then add the jar to the fridge. If dealing with a large quantity, use a fermentation lid.
Refrigerate for 3 weeks before using. When using, remove citrus with a utensil so you keep bacteria out.
