Lemon essence
One thing that comes up whenever I play with historical recipes is the different scents we like to give our food. Orange blossom was quite popular in the 1810s and lemon essence was a staple in Melbourne cupboards in the 1960s.
One day I will do a lengthy post on the difference between essences and oils and waters and spirits and cordials and other products made from an important base ingredient. In the interim, let me titillate your palate with a very brief introduction to lemon eseence.
Technically, lemon essence is the oil extracted from lemon peel. It’s also known as lemon oil. There is a cold pressed variety and a hot pressed variety - go for cold pressed if you can find it.
Lemon peel contains an extraordinary amount of essential oil. In fact, most citrus fruits do. Most ‘essences’ have been extracted with alcohol or using other techniques - the best lemon essence is simply pressed from the fresh peel.
Lemon peel has been used as an ingredient for as long as lemons have been known. Lemon oil can substitute for peel in dishes where you only want the fragrance. If you need the pectin, however (eg in marmalades) then the oil will not work.
If you need a non-acid form of lemon fragrance, then lemon myrtle is your baby. It’s the most perfect lemon scent nature produces (in my unbiased opinion) and is almost completely acid free. I use far less lemon essence than I used to and lemon myrtle is to blame.
April 11th, 2007 at 4:41 am
Interesting comments on using lemon myrtle to extend or enhance lemon essence. I tend to use Lemon myrtle sprinkle which has all the citral and more of lemon essence plus limonene and cineole from the rainforest fruits in the mix. This seems to fully replace the use of lemon essence in any historic recipe I have using it and delivers a far superior flavour.
May I refer those interested in learning more about lemon myrtle sprinkle to my website at http://www.cherikoff.net/cherikoff/index.php?id=5 and to even experiment with some from our on-line store at http://www.cherikoff.net/shop
April 11th, 2007 at 5:15 am
It’s a very small world. My aunt was a big fan of your work and introduced me to bush foods through your work many years ago. I don’t use them instead of the historically correct ingredient for a time and place (because a superior flavour that was unknown is historically not as authentic as an inferior flavour people were used to), but I will often replace ingredients with an Australian ingredient when I’m cooking non-historically and it will improve the dish. In the case of anything lemon, lemon myrtle (either alone or with other seasoning) will significantly improive dishes. Bush tomato, lemon myrtle, wattleseed, Dorrigo pepper and mountain pepperleaf are ingredients I try to always have in my spice rack.
For anyone reading Vic’s comment - please check out his work. I’ll do a post on it one day to let you know how important it has been to the wider understanding of indigenous foods.
October 28th, 2007 at 2:17 pm
[...] Polack presents Lemon essence posted at Gillian Polack, saying, “One of an ongoing series on ingredients and how to use [...]