When life gives you lemons

The best kind of acid trip - new ways to cook with winter zing

Kia ora friends, 

This week the newsletter is back to regular programming after last fortnight’s ‘All things Good Vibes’ addition. The release of my cookbook this month has been all consuming, so it’s a welcome reset to find myself back in the kitchen creating new recipes for you all to enjoy. The biggest thank you to everyone who has picked up a copy of Good Vibes, or came out to support my NZ Book Launch Tour last week - it was so much fun connecting with food lovers across the country. Good Vibes should now be on the shelves of most bookstores in NZ/AUS - eagerly waiting to bring joy and deliciousness into your kitchens. If you do cook from it, I’d love to see your creations - share and tag @albyhailes or send me a pic in the DMs if you’re on Instagram.

Lemons! It’s hard to think of a more ubiquitous and versatile fruit when it comes to home cooking; from its ability to traverse the sweet and savoury realms, to the instant life it brings to any dish, lemons are the MVP. My partner recently visited his whānau in Hawke’s Bay, which alongside Tairāwhiti is the home of NZ citrus. Grapefruits, limes, sweet-as oranges, you name it, with the arrival of winter the regions’ front lawns soon become littered with the dropping of excess globes of juicy goodness. His parents fit this trend with a prolific lemon tree, and as such I’ve recently been the benefactor of a large 25kg box of lemons to churn through. Obvious inspiration for this week’s newsletter.

I’m not going to harp on about the basics of lemons, as I’m sure you’re all well familiar with them, but here’s a couple of fun ways to use lemons to amp things up in the kitchen:

• When baking cakes with milk (dairy or non-dairy), add 1-2 tbsp lemon juice to every cup of milk used, and let it sit for 10 minutes before adding to the cake batter. This curdles the milk a little, a quick ‘buttermilk’ if you will, which not only provides a tanginess that can neatly offset the sweetness a little, but the acid also helps to activate the raising agent (e.g. baking powder/soda) and assists gluten breakdown to improve the tenderness of the cake crumb.

• Just as other fruits can be preserved into jams and sauces, I love making the most of winter lemons by preserving them. Preserved lemons are commonly used in North African (ie tagines) and Middle Eastern cooking, where lacto-fermentation with salt breaks down the lemon skin, unlocking its potential to create a deliciously intense lemon flavour excellent for adding to soups/stews or blitzing into mayos, sauces, curds etc. It means that you can use the entire lemon! Here’s my quick and easy preserved lemon recipe:

  • Sterilise an 800ml glass jar. Cut an ‘X’ cross into 6 lemons, stopping when you are three-quarters of the way through so that the lemons remain intact at the base. Pack 1 tablespoon of coarse sea salt into each lemon, then tightly pack the salted lemons into the sterilised jar, pressing down with the end of a wooden spoon to extract as much juice out of the lemons as possible. Add some whole spices of your choosing (e.g. coriander seeds, crushed cardamom pods, peppercorns). Using the wooden spoon, muddle the seeds with the lemons. Squeeze in enough extra lemon juice to cover the lemons completely, seal the jar and place in a cool, dark, dry place for 3-4 weeks. After 3-4 weeks, move to the refrigerator and use as desired (they will keep in the fridge for 3 months).

• If a recipe calls for lemon juice, always finely grate the zest of your lemons first, and store the lemon zest in an airtight jar in the freezer. Lemon zest freezes exceptionally well, and you can add it straight from the freezer into future recipes. Similarly, in the winter lemon season you can easily freeze lemon juice into ice cubes and then use on-demand the rest of the year.

• When baking with lemon zest, at the beginning, always rub the lemon zest into the sugar with your hands until fragrant - this increases the intensity of the lemon flavour and makes the bake more aromatic.

Lemon and chicken are a match made in heaven - cooking chicken in lemon juice not only provides excellent flavour, but the acidity of the lemon does a great job of tenderising the meat for ultimate succulence, while the liquid keeps the meat nice and moist. One of my favourite tricks when using lemons is cooking the lemon halves, flesh-side-down, for a few minutes in a hot pan so the flesh caramelises and starts to burn. I find this further amplifies the lemon flavour. Today I’m sharing my brand-new recipe for Burnt lemon chicken with royal bulgur and mustard crème fraîche. I love a layered sharing platter - it’s my favourite way to eat - and this might just be my new go-to meat-based option. Chicken thighs are grilled and braised in a burnt lemon, garlic and rosemary butter sauce, then nestled into a bed of fragrant bulgur wheat studded with currants, apricots, bright herbs and pistachios. Add in a creamy, lemony, mustardy crème fraîche and you've got a showstopping layered sharing platter that hits in all the right places!

Plant-based eaters not to worry, if you scroll down to this week’s mood booster, I’ve got an equally delicious quick spaghetti recipe which leans heavily into some of my favourite savoury flavour boosters - think capers, Dijon mustard, gherkins and extra extra lemon. It’s bright, fresh, punchy goodness - and perfect for the incoming broad bean season too!

Much love,

Alby xx

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This week’s MOOD BOOSTER:

The most glorious green spaghetti

By now you’ve probably realised that spaghetti is my favourite form of pasta; I love how the long thin strands really soak up the flavour of a sauce, and I think the child within also likes the fact that slurping becomes slightly more socially acceptable when spaghetti is around. I think pasta is usually best when paired with bright, fresh flavours, and this couldn’t be truer than in this most glorious green spaghetti. The sauce is almost a salsa verde of sorts, with garlic, capers, lemon and BIG parsley hits. I love broad beans - my Granddad would always have a bumper crop and I have a lot of nostalgia associated with them. They are extra groovy tossed through this spaghetti (always double-pod the broad beans, see how in the method below), but you could also toss through some blanched fresh or frozen garden peas as a sub. Leave out the ricotta dollops at the end for a vegan version.

serves 4 as a main

Ingredients:

100ml olive oil

1 medium bunch (30g) flat-leaf parsley, plus extra to serve

30g gherkins (from a jar), chopped

4 cloves garlic

finely grated zest and juice of 2 lemons, plus extra to serve

2 tbsp capers

2 tsp Dijon mustard

¾ tsp cracked black pepper, plus extra to serve

½ tsp + 1 tbsp sea salt

400g spaghetti

250g fresh or frozen podded broad beans

200g ricotta, to serve (optional)

Method:

First make the green spaghetti sauce. Place the olive oil, parsley, gherkins, garlic, lemon zest, lemon juice, capers, mustard and black pepper in a tall container. Blitz with a stick blender to form a relatively smooth, herb-flecked green sauce. Season to taste, I find ½ tsp sea salt is about right - you want it quite salty as it will lessen once tossed through the spaghetti. Set aside.

For the spaghetti, bring a large saucepan of water with 1 tbsp sea salt to the boil over high heat. Once bubbling vigorously, add the spaghetti and cook until al dente (about 7-8 minutes or as per packet instructions). As the spaghetti is cooking, double-pod the broad beans. To do this, place the podded beans in a bowl, cover with boiling water and leave for 3 minutes before draining and rinsing under cold water. Pop each broad bean out of their husks and discard the husks, so you are left with bright green double-podded beans.

Once al dente, drain the cooking water from the spaghetti, reserving 60ml (¼ cup). Return the spaghetti to the saucepan, along with the reserved cooking water, and place over low heat. Add the double-podded beans and three-quarters of the green spaghetti sauce. Using tongs, toss through the spaghetti for a minute, while gently heating through.

To serve, pile the warm spaghetti into wide bowls, making sure the broad beans are shared evenly. Dollop a few spoonfuls of ricotta (if using) onto the spaghetti, drizzle with some of the remaining spaghetti sauce, and finish with extra chopped parsley, cracked black pepper and a squeeze of lemon juice.

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Best of the season this fortnight (NZ):

Brassicas (cauliflower, broccoli, Brussels sprouts)

Parsnips, Carrots

Lemons, Oranges

Grapefruit

Avocados

Leeks

Celery

Winter carrots

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Kitchen music of the moment:

• Growing up, I was heavily influenced by the music of my parents, particularly those albums which would play on long family road trips around the South Island. One of my Dad’s favourites was the Jackie Brown soundtrack, one of the lesser known, but equally worthy efforts from renowned director Quentin Tarantino. His films are synonymous with great music, and often I find myself recycling through the tracks off this album as I muddle in the kitchen. Two of my favourites are ‘Across 110th Street’ by the legendary Bobby Womack, which features in the opening scenes of the film, and ‘Strawberry Letter 23’ by The Brothers Johnson - both tracks straight from the 70’s with roots in funk and psychedelic soul. Play it loud!

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Interesting reads:

• A taste for nostalgia: Why our food memories are so powerful

• Growing interest in a petition for a national food strategy for Aotearoa

• An insight into the need for a changing food system in Aotearoa

• The NZ Labour government has recently proposed removal of GST off fruit & veg from April 2024. What are your thoughts? For anyone wanting to take a deep dive, here’s some literature that speaks to some arguements both for and against, and also some ideas learning from other countries’ examples for how this could best be implemented in NZ.

• There’s nothing more romantic to a foodie than a lemon grove on the Amalfi coast