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| Finished product! |
Quite some time ago, I saw the "10 Dollar Dinners" episode showcasing Melissa D'arabian's Chicken Tagine recipe. It looked delicious, but the Lemon Confit has been cost prohibitive. $13.00 for a 4.5 oz container. Plus, it is difficult to find outside of gourmet foodie stores. I set the idea aside, but it has stayed in the back of my mind...almost forgotten, but not quite.
When Aldi advertised lemons for 19 cents each, I remembered the Chicken Tagine recipe and thought to make some confit at home. If I did it correctly, the process was very simple.
Here is the recipe from the food network site... (http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/melissa-darabian/lemon-confit-recipe/index.html)
Lemon Confit:
3 organic lemons, skin scrubbed well
Kosher salt
4 peppercorns
1/2 lemon, juiced
Place the lemons, 2 to 3 tablespoons salt, peppercorns, and lemon juice in a quart jar and cover with water. Store chilled for 3 weeks.
3 organic lemons, skin scrubbed well
Kosher salt
4 peppercorns
1/2 lemon, juiced
Place the lemons, 2 to 3 tablespoons salt, peppercorns, and lemon juice in a quart jar and cover with water. Store chilled for 3 weeks.
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| Gathering all of my ingredients - Ball jars, lemons, Jamaican Allspice, and salt |
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| Scrubbed my lemons clean |
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| 3 freshly scrubbed lemons per jar... |
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| Add salt to each |
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| juice from 1/2 a lemon in each jar |
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| Add water to jars... |
The most expensive thing about this recipe was purchasing a 12 count box of Pint sized ball jars for 11.89. So, roughly one dollar per jar as a one time cost. Hopefully, I will use them again and again for various recipes, or for straight storage.
Cost breakdown for the recipe:
12 Ball jars 11.89
24.5 lemons @ 19 cents each 4.66
21 tbsp kosher salt 1.05
28 peppercorns @ .03 each .84
Total = 18.44
Now, I would not have purchased the ball jars without the intent of making confit, so I am amortizing the price of all 12 jars into the cost of the resulting 7 jars of product, so when I crunch my numbers, I will simply divide the $18.44 total into only 7 jars, so each jar is $2.64.
For 7 pint sized jars of lemon confit, I paid $2.64 per jar, which is waaaaayyy lower than any price I could have found in a specialty foodie shop, or on line. AND - the next time I make it, the price will not include the jars, so it will be less than a dollar per jar to make in the future.
Now, I would not have purchased the ball jars without the intent of making confit, so I am amortizing the price of all 12 jars into the cost of the resulting 7 jars of product, so when I crunch my numbers, I will simply divide the $18.44 total into only 7 jars, so each jar is $2.64.
For 7 pint sized jars of lemon confit, I paid $2.64 per jar, which is waaaaayyy lower than any price I could have found in a specialty foodie shop, or on line. AND - the next time I make it, the price will not include the jars, so it will be less than a dollar per jar to make in the future.
The next time I make this recipe, since I will already have the jars, it should only set me back about $6.64. Even considering the price of the jars, $18.53 is not bad for 7 pint sized jars of Lemon Confit. $6.64 will be even better! :-)
Each jar holds 3 lemons, and the juice of half a lemon per jar for 7 jars meant 24.5 lemons were used for the Confit recipe. I used a lemon the other day to poach my fish, so I had 4.5 lemons left over.
It seemed like a good idea to try to preserve the rest of the lemons in some way, so I decided to dry my leftover lemons for use later. I sliced the lemons fairly thinly, getting 5-8 slices per lemon, depending on the size of the lemon Setting my oven to 200 degrees, and putting the lemon slices on a cookie sheet lined with foil, I started the drying process. Turning every hour for 5 hours, I wound up with lovely dried lemons that I can use for future fish poaching.
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