Bought at: Gleebooks, Glebe (Sydney) on one of the many visits I made the to the store seeking calm and distraction while I worked nearby.
Recipes Made: Bergamot and Lemon Roast Chicken p.103, Classic Lemon Tart p.168 and Lemon Curd p.244.
I made the Bergamot and Lemon Roast Chicken when we had bergamots in season, and I think I may have roasted the chicken with half a bergamot inside the chicken too (not that the recipe says to do so), purely just to enjoy the bergamots even more. I really liked that this recipe used vermouth, which has such a wonderful fragrant smell whilst cooking, and while my gravy didn’t look much (maybe all gravy is just an ugly brown colour yet filled with flavour?), it did taste great!
Bergamot and Lemon Roast Chicken ready for the oven
I made the Classic Lemon Tart with a mixture of homegrown bergamots, homegrown lemonades and lemons. I really liked the flavour of the tart and I liked that the pastry didn’t require using a food processor too. My filling cooked with a few bubbles on top from whisking it all up, probably because I didn’t use the right kind of cream - I used pouring rather than heavy cream , and I ended up with so much filling left over I made another only slightly smaller tart! Next time I will definitely be using heavy cream! I wrote a blog post about this recipe, and how I first heard about this book which you can find here.
Classic Lemon Tart made with lemon, bergamot and lemonades
Last year I found yuzu in my local green grocer for the first time, so I bought a couple and then had to decide what to do with them. This book being my bible on what to do with citrus, I decided on making Catherine’s recipe for Lemon Curd with them, which she suggests as a good substitute for lemons in the introduction to the recipe. I really liked this curd recipe, it produced a lovely consistency of curd and it firmed up even more once it was refrigerated. I used the curd to fill mini tarts, as shown in this blog post.
Lemon Curd made with Yuzu
Favourite Things About the Book: I really love the focus on just one type of food in this book. The beginning of the book has an explanation of all types of citrus, from lemons and limes, to yuzu and finger limes. I especially love that the book contains much about bergamots, which I love and had not long started growing when I purchased the book. I refer to this book, and the introductory sections in particular, a lot when I find unusual types of citrus or want to know more about what I could use as a substitute. Catherine also details how to dry citrus, freeze, candy and much more. There is basically every recipe you will ever need for cooking or baking with citrus in here, and the cover is a lovely marbled yellow fabric that feels wonderful to the touch (even if I do stress about getting such lovely cookbook covers dirty when I am using them in the kitchen!).
Bookmarked Recipes (to make later!): Bergamot and Rose Turkish Delight Pavlova p.166, Earl Grey and Rose Parfait p.178, Quince, Clementine and Rose Jelly p.225 and Turkish Delight p.226.
