A couple of weeks ago, I posted about an old favorite of mine, preserved lemons. Turns out there were a lot of questions. Okay, there was one question, asked many, many times across all social media. It was, “Can I do it with x?” where x = a citrus fruit that isn’t a lemon. My resounding answer was yes! You totally can! The only issue I’ve found is that they aren’t as versatile as the lemons, which I will put on and in just about anything. I put more salt in with the sweeter fruit (oranges and grapefruits) and into each jar I add the juice of a lemon for greater acidity. When you do your daily shake and smash, give it a sniff. If it smells like some kind of citrus crack you can’t stop sniffing, all is well. If after a few days, it starts smelling slightly alcoholic, like an ambrosial arancello (or whatever the lime and grapefruit versions are called), add another dash of salt and a little squeeze of lemon juice and check back the following day.
So what’s the point of the almost quartering thing? Anyone who has ever made a quick pickle knows that salting helps the produce release its juices. This juice-releasing is really helpful for this process because you need the maximum amount of juice out of your fruit if you’re going to end up with submerged fruit. When you salt and reform the fruit, you get the surfaces all good and salted, which makes for maximum squashing ease.
Feel free to experiment with seasonings or leave them out all together. Remember that anything you add before fermentation will limit the versatility of your final product.
Process after the jump.