Cooking with Fresh Lemon Juice: Food Tip of the Day - Saturday, April 24th, 2010

There are a great many instances, in all styles and types of cooking, where the recipe calls for - or we are required to use - fresh lemon juice. Yes, we can buy lemon juice bottled, or we can buy a whole lemon each time when we may only need to use a quarter of it or even less. There is, however, a third alternative, which makes cooking with fresh lemon juice both extremely economical and practical.

Chopping up a lemon and freezing it in a tupperware container means that we will always have, ready to hand, a supply of truly fresh lemon juice. We can either defrost what we require in advance, or simply add a piece or more of the frozen lemon to a boiling solution. Whatever the recipe demands, the process is incredibly straightforward.

There is even an additional benefit of storing fresh lemon - or lime, or orange - in this fashion. How many times do we add a slice of citrus fruit to an alcoholic drink? Fairly regularly, dependant naturally upon the type of drink. Unfortunately, what we also tend to do is add ice, which melts and dilutes the taste and alcoholic content of the drink. By adding a piece or slice of frozen fruit to the drink, we essentially kill two birds with one stone. The cold fruit chills the drink and as it melts, it affords us the additional flavour we require, without watering down our drink!

What are you waiting for? Get some lemons and limes chopped up and in to your deep freeze today!