Preserved Lemon Spaghetti

I felt 60ºF weather bless us for a brief moment, and now this dish feels right.

Cacio Pepe, macaroni & cheese, pasta with butter, and parmigiano. These all live in the same world of simple deliciousness. Enter Spaghetti al Limone (LeeMoNAY). I had it first at Frank in the east village (NYC), and have seen it all over since. The salty, creamy cheese emulsification is balanced by lemon zest and juice. A fantastic stretching of the palate’s opposite flavor receptors. I asked myself, how I could push this limone concept further. The answer is with preserved lemons, crème fraîche, cheese, and a little msg. I know that’s a lot, so let’s start with the preserved lemons. You can buy them in a jar, or I’ve attached a recipe to make your own, however they take nearly 2 weeks to make. What are they? A cross between a fermented and pickled lemon. the rind becomes tender and the aromas extremely perfumed. I think they’re fantastic. They are super tart though, so the crème fraîche, parm, and in my case msg, really nicely balance that out. Why msg? well, it’s more savory than salt and about 1/3 less salty too, a perfect and much needed umami note. I recommend trying a finger dab’s worth, I’ve done that for years when cooking for people. The response is always of excitement and wonder. “It tastes like cheese!” Head over to Know MSG for some literature if you’re still of the belief that msg is a headache machine. It is not, I use it nearly daily.

So if you have preserved lemons, and I’ll be honest, I used store bought for the photo below (yesterday’s lunch) they were delicious, then this dish comes together as fast as you can boil pasta. Try your preserved lemon first, if it’s very salty, and they often are, then pull back on the pasta water salt, in fact omit it.

Simple, delicious.

Should I do a pasta of the month? because right now I struggle with how many pastas recipes are too many. Let me know!

for 2

INGREDIENTS

7 ounces (180g) spaghetti / lumache

1 small preserved lemon (75g), chopped

4oz (110g) grated parmigiano

75 grams crème fraîche

1 tablespoon (14g) unsalted butter

MSG to taste

basil to finish

STEPS:

Set a large pot filled with 3-4 quarts of water over high heat, once boiling, add the pasta. Set a timer for 10 minutes.

Set a sauté pan over medium heat, add the butter, the preserved lemon, and the MSG.

Grate your cheese, 4oz may look like a lot more than you think, especially if using a microplane. I recommend weighing the cheese - the dish may be too bright if the cheese quantity isn’t right/enough.

If the butter browns (which is ok up to a point) add a little pasta water to rehydrate everything and slow the cooking, until the pasta is ready.

Add the pasta to the lemon butter mixture with 1/4c of the pasta water. Increase the heat to high, and mix well and constantly until you hear some bubbling, about 90 seconds.

Turn off the heat, add the cheese, and crème fraîche, and mix well. Adjust to make it just slightly wetter than you think (because the pasta will absorb a little more liquid as it cools). finish with basil, if you desire.

serve immediately.

Preserved Lemons

store bought, and homemade preserved lemons.

For years I’ve asked myself “what is cooking?” The answer is multilayered, but certainly at some point, if flavor nirvana is the goal, then the best or more curated ingredients are a must. It’s not as simple as just buying anything, cutting, heating and plating. Preserved lemons are one of those ingredients that take things to the next level - these fermented lemons add a perfumed and hard to pinpoint extra zag to any dish. Put in the time now and get unique results on a dish in the future.

Ingredients

8 lemons or meyer lemons

kosher salt (about 1 c)

Equipment

1 wide mouth mason jar

Steps

Cut an X into the top of 4 lemons, but don’t cut all the way through, we just want to expose the core.

Open each lemon like an origami folding and sprinkle liberally with salt, the place into the jar. Repeat this 4 times-6 times, until the jar can’t hold any more. Push the lemons down and pack them tight, if juice squeezes out of them, that’s totally ok. Secondly if the jar looks like it can hold more lemons, then add more.

With the remaining lemons, cut them in half and squeeze their juice into the jar, covering the salted lemons completely. If there’s a shortfall of lemon juice, you may top off with olive oil. It is important that the lemons are surrounded by liquid, in the past I’ve had hit and miss results with using only salt, mold forms - the way we’re doing it, submerged in an acidic briny liquid is much better, because there’s nowhere for oxygen to hide.

Add more salt and cover the jar. Every 12 hours give the jar a shake. Do this for three days, then transfer to the fridge for a month. You can start using them after 10 days, pull one out, rinse off all the salt and slice it up.