These tips will have you happily zesting and juicing lemons to your heart’s content!
Choosing your lemons
Pick lemons that have a smooth and bright exterior and are heavy for their size.
Store on the kitchen bench if you intend to use them in a few days or refrigerate in a paper bag for up to a month in the crisper.
Before zesting, wash the lemon in very hot water to remove any dirt or coating on the fruit.
Rind v juice: which to tackle first?
If the recipe calls for both rind and juice, always remove the rind first. It’s much easier to finely grate/zest a whole lemon than half a lemon.
Best tools for zesting
Our preferred tool is a fine, sharp grater, like a microplane, to remove the outer yellow rind in fine flakes, perfect for baking.
A lemon zesting tool will remove thin strips of rind, more suited to savoury dishes. The white pith underneath the rind is quite bitter so best to avoid grating too deeply.