Preserved lemons: An experiment

I tried something new today: preserving lemons.

Any of you ever done this before? I'm very partial to a preserved lemon, but I don't get to eat them very often. They're the sort of thing that comes vastly overpriced in little luxury jars in the supermarket, and I've always put myself off buying them with the idea that one day I'll get round to making some myself. The result being, of course, that I've never got round to making any and I hardly ever get to eat them.

Well today I finally did it.

And for anybody out there who is interested in the finances of preserving lemons yourself instead of buying them, here are the maths:

I bought a kilner preserving jar, 2 bags of lemons and 3 packets of sea salt. Altogether it came to about £10, which is quite a lot for some preserved lemons but the kilner jar is an investment and will hopefully house many more lemons in the future. Since the entire lemon is used and the salt is such a feature, I spent a bit more in getting good quality unwaxed, organic lemons and coarse sea salt instead of table salt. Of course in a supermarket that kind of salt only comes in small quantities at vast price; if the lemons work out I'll consider buying it wholesale in bulk which is much, much cheaper.

I fitted 8 lemons in the jar, so per batch of preserved lemons that works out at £6, or 75p per lemon (if I bought the salt wholesale it could be as little as £3.75 per batch and about 45p per lemon). I'm not sure how much cheaper that is than buying them in jars in the supermarket (they sell them by weight so I can't make a direct comparison), but I'm pretty sure the quality will be much better. The supermarket lemons are adulterated with oil and garlic and whatnot, whereas what I am after are the pure salted lemons that can be used as a base ingredient in a tagine or a stew. Plus I had the pleasure of doing something that felt worthwhile and housewifely, in the very old, medieval and best sense of the word. There's nothing like preserving ingredients in large quantities to make oneself feel like one is being forward-thinking, frugal and in control of things.

If the lemons work out I'll share the method for preserving them. Best wait and see first!