Take your salads to the next level, as your SEO consultant would have you put it.

This recipe here, from Yotam Ottolenghi's "New Vegetarian" column, has a trick in it that I have been using in all sorts of grain salads, pilafs, mixed roast vegetables, and other things of that room-temperature party dish variety. It is a fantastic secret-ingredient sort of thing that will make you feel like a wizard, it is highly generalizable, and I am drawing your attention to it because I love you.

The conditions: You have some dish of this sort, anything from the broad range of things you might call a "salad," or maybe something that would stretch the definition a bit too far. The main qualifying factors are (a) that it involves some non-homogenous stuff tossed or mixed together, (b) it is not to be served piping hot, and (c) you might conceivably want to squeeze some lemon or lime over it before serving.

The thing to do, and here I am partially quoting and partially paraphrasing from that linked recipe: Instead of just adding juice, take one or two or three lemons or limes (as you prefer). Use a small, sharp knife and trim off both ends. Then cut down the sides of the fruit, along their round curves, to remove the skin and white pith. Over a small bowl, remove the segments by slicing between the membranes. Squeeze any remaining juice over the segments. Poke your sharp knife in among the segment and cut them into small pieces -- say, thirds. Then add the segments and the juice to your whatever it is.

YES, this is more work than just squeezing a lime or two. But it is not much more work, if you have a suitable knife (it must be SHARP or you will be sad. I have a lethal little serrated fruit knife with a curved tip that works very well) and holy crow does it make things taste just like they would otherwise only magically extra amazing.

Comments

[Elsa]

I keep coming back to this entry, trying to taste the lemons segments in my mind. I add supremed orange or grapefruit to savory dishes with no hesitation*.

But actual chunks of lemon? It seems a little... puckery, even for a lemon lover like me. But I can't imagine you'd suggest something as puckery as I'm imagining... so I'll just have to try it next time I make a bean salad.

*Rather, I do when I'm dining alone: The Fella has qualms about pulp.

[redfox]

It is definitely crucial that you cut/break the supremes into smaller pieces. I say thirds above, but for a large lemon you might want to break each wedge into four or more. Then they get broken up a bit more, even, in the mixing.

[Elsa]

I am going to push past my qualms and try it --- maybe on a lentil salad, because the Fear of Puckering makes me think of Robert McCloskey's Lentil, in which Old Sneep sucks loudly on a lemon, hoping to quell the marching band's song through vicarious puckering. The titular Lentil saves the day, of course!

[Marcus]

Maybe I'm missing something but why is this better than just squeezing some lemon juice?

[redfox]

The lemon pieces are more intensely lemony, in exciting little bursts when you bite them.

[Debra]

I am so glad I landed on your site. Your suggestion to put chunks of lemon in my salad is brilliant. Whodathunk!! I enjoy it tremendously thanks for the idea.

[Neilesh Patel (Recruiter focused on Food Manufacturing Jobs)]

I came across your blog today and enjoyed it. Is it ok if we re-post some of your entries in our newsletter? I just think a lot of the food and beverage people who visit our community would like reading some of your posts, even though they are mainly industry professionals, they are still ‘foodies’. Let me know. :)

Neilesh