1,600 easy and fully explained recipes, with +66K photos and 77 videos

This site uses only a few technical cookies that are necessary for its operation.
By continuing to browse, you agree to their use (learn more...).

Lemon in recipes

Let's take a look at the lemon, yellow or green, which is used in a whole host of recipes, both sweet and savoury. It brings both its taste, and the small acidity that makes its charm. Mind you, I'm not talking about lemon used as an anti-oxidant that prevents it from turning black, or to just spice up the taste of a dish, but as an ingredient in a recipe, like "something with lemon".

17 K 5/5 (14 reviews)

Last modified on: October 23^th 2017

For this post Comments Lasts posts Follow

For this post: Comment Follow Ask me a question Send to a friend

In many of these recipes, you very often have two options: zest, or juice, meaning that you use one or the other in the recipe depending on the "tone" you want to give it. Let's say, to simplify things a bit, that when you want the tangy side of the lemon, you use the juice.

hand-pressed lemon

And when you want the lemony but more neutral tone, you use the zest.

lemon zest

Well... in principle it makes sense, but in reality it's not really a good practice, because lemon flavours are both complex and at the same time complementary. In fact, you should not limit yourself to one or the other, but try to combine both, both sweet and savoury.

Let's take a savoury example: lemon chicken. There are 36 ways to make it of course, but do you know the one where you simply pan-fry chicken fillets in a little clarified butter and lemon zest, then drizzle lemon juice over them at the end to finish them off by gently caramelising? The mix of the two, zest and juice, will give a very marked "lemon" tone to your chicken, and a great taste!

And a sweet example: the lemon tart. Here too, there are a large number of recipes, personally I am an absolute fan of the sanded pastry + lemon custard, and for the custard, you need to infuse the milk with the zest, and add lemon juice to the custard as soon as it's done cooking. You will also have a very, very marked "lemon" identity, which will have a small effect when tasting.

In summary: In a recipe that uses lemon, always try to use zest and juice.

Lasts posts

Hot Emulsified Sauces

In French cuisine, sauces are a very important part of a recipe—not just a side dish. In fact, they’re so important that, especially since the time of Auguste Escoffier, they’ve been classified into categories. And among these categories are “hot emulsified sauces,” or lukewarm ones. ...
September 9^th 20268365

Hot Dishes and Cold Dishes

When plating or serving a dish—whether hot or cold—on a plate, it’s very important to make sure they’re both the right temperature; in other words: if the dish is hot, the plate should be hot, and conversely, if the dish is cold, the plate should be cold. Is this really important? Let’s...
September 2^nd 20267873

In baking, cold is your friend

When you bake at home—especially when making pie crusts—you’ve probably noticed that it’s quite difficult to work with the dough when it’s hot. It gets soft, is hard to roll out, and breaks or crumples very easily. And this doesn’t just happen when it’s hot—even in a comfortable...
August 26^th 20268245

With vinegar?

When you buy a jar of pickles labeled “in vinegar,” you’re looking for their tangy, crunchy flavor to go with cold cuts, sandwiches, or salads. You expect to find small gherkins preserved in vinegar, with salt and herbs, but is that really the case?
July 15^th 20261,8054.8

Congratulate the chef

You've just finished a meal that you really enjoyed. The server approaches with the usual question: “How was it?” And then, as a natural reflex, you simply reply, “Yes, it was very good.” However, when the meal was truly outstanding, this brief exchange deserves a little more. .
July 7^th 20261,293 35

See all posts Random post RSS feeds

Salt and yeast

Let's take a look at an old baker's legend: You may have already read that somewhere in a recipe that uses baker's yeast(bread, pastries, leavened doughs in general) it is often specified "Don't put salt in contact with the yeast, you'll kill it (the yeast)"! Well, that's a belief, and there are...
March 15^th 201976 K4.3

5 really useful cooking tips

Cooking is about recipes, of course, but it is also an impressive collection of small gestures, ways of doing things, knowing what to do and what not to do. All these little tips and tricks can be very important: they can affect the way a recipe turns out, simply because you did just the right...
March 29^th 201625 K4.9

Cooking scallops

We are, as I write these lines, in the season of the scallops, if you like that it is necessary to benefit from it as much as possible, although it is alas not cheap. I like scallops a lot, but I have to admit that it has naturally little taste, or, said differently, it takes the taste of what...
November 23^th 202114 K5

The preservation of bread

Eating fresh bread is always a delight, the crust crumbles deliciously, you take full advantage of the taste of your bread (80% of this taste is in the crust), it is a fleeting moment to enjoy. Who hasn't already eaten the crouton or croutons of his baguette, on the way back from the bakery? ...
June 11^th 202216 K4.7

Artichoke stalks

When preparing artichokes for cooking, you may well already know that we often need to remove the first round of leaves, if they are tatty or dirty, as well as the inedible stalk. The operative word here is “remove” , rather than “cut off”.
October 25^th 201655 K4.3