DYI tahini

Say you are in some godforsaken place that doesn't have a can of tahini on the shelf. (Yes, such places exist.) Here's how to make it yourself, from Jane Brody:

Tahini

Ingredients
1/4 cup sesame seeds
1 teaspoon lemon juice
1/2 teaspoon oil
2 tablespoons water

Instructions
Put everything in a blender and blend until smooth.

Note: You can grow your own sesame; you can see it in the garden at Monticello. It does need good drainage, which may be hard to come by in clay soils. You can order seed from Sesaco Corp. (800-527-1024)

Tangy Tuscan chicken

Toward the end of October last year, I published a method for easy preserved lemons (if you missed it, click on the orange words and you'll be taken to that post with the recipe). Now that your lemons are quite soft and ready to use, you may be wondering what else can benefit from this tangy condiment.

This week's Washington Post food section has a yummy recipe for Tuscany chicken, cooked on a Tuscan grill in the fireplace. If you don't have one, you can still make this chicken on the stove in a large, well-seasoned cast-iron skillet, weighting the chicken with foil-covered bricks or even a slightly smaller skillet; or on your grill, if you haven't stored it away for the winter. Just be careful and keep the heat rather low, so that the chicken cooks through before its outside is charred.

Tuscan Lemon and Rosemary Chicken

If you would like to make an aioli dipping sauce for the chicken, remove 2 tablespoons of the marinade before mixing it with the chicken and combine it with 3/4 cup mayonnaise. Refrigerate until ready to use.

MAKE AHEAD: The lemon-garlic paste can be made up to 3 days ahead and refrigerated. The chicken should marinate for at least an hour or as long as overnight.

4 to 6 servings

Ingredients:

• 4 preserved lemon wedges
• 4 sprigs fresh rosemary, needles removed from the stem, stem discarded
• 4 medium garlic cloves
• 1/2 cup extra-virgin olive oil
• 1 3- to 4-pound chicken, butterflied
• 1 tablespoon crushed red chili pepper
• Coarse salt
• Freshly cracked black pepper

Directions:

To prepare the marinade for the chicken, place the lemon wedges, garlic, rosemary and olive oil in a blender. (A food processor may be used, but the blender makes a more pastelike mixture.) Blend on low speed, just until coarsely chopped. Refrigerate until ready to use.

Butterfly the chicken by cutting along the backbone on both sides and removing the bone. Place the chicken breast side up on a stable surface; press down on both sides of the breast and pull out the legs to flatten the chicken. Place the chicken on a shallow platter, skin side down. Rub the cavity of the chicken with one-third of the marinade and season with half of the crushed chili pepper, salt and pepper. Turn the chicken over and rub the remaining two-thirds of the marinade over the chicken to coat the skin. Season with the remaining half of the crushed chili pepper, and salt and pepper to taste. Cover with plastic wrap and allow to marinate in the refrigerator for at least 1 hour and as long as overnight.

Meanwhile, prepare a fire in the fireplace. It should be hot, but allow the flames to subside before you begin cooking. Have ready a Tuscan grill (see headnote).

Place the flattened chicken on the Tuscan grill, skin side up. Place the grill in the fire in an area where there is the least amount of heat, so the chicken won't burn before it is thoroughly cooked. Place 2 bricks covered in aluminum foil (or other heavy weight) on top of the chicken to keep it flat. Cook for about 10 minutes, then carefully remove the bricks, turn the chicken over and put the bricks back on top of the chicken. Watch the fire carefully. As the embers burn down, move the grill around or adjust the grill's height to allow the chicken to cook evenly. You will also need to watch for flare-ups and move the grill if the heat is too high. Cook, turning the chicken over every 10 minutes or so and adjusting the grill as needed, until the the skin is lightly charred, the chicken is flattened and an instant-read meat thermometer inserted in the thigh area reads 170 degrees. Cooking times will vary, but it should take 30 to 45 minutes.

From Alisa Barry, owner of Bella Cucina Artful Food (www.bellacucina.com).

Tested by Bonny Wolf for The Washington Post.

Slices of lemon

Freezing lemon slices is easier than I thought it would be, and I thought it would be easy. Lemons and cookie sheets are really all you need, and airtight containers or bags for storing them.

Start by slicing the lemons in half, and removing as many seeds as you can. Then either slice them thinly by hand, or use the food processor, with a 4mm slicing blade (the 2mm makes slices so thin you can see through them. Nice for garnish, but not so good for the freezing process). Lay them in a single layer on the cookie sheets, freeze until hard, then remove them from the cookie sheets and put them in bags and put them back in the freezer.

You can use them in water or drinks straight from the freezer; they act a little like an ice cube as they thaw out and flavor the liquid.

Meyer lemon-paloosa

My friend Joye just sent me a big box of Meyer lemons from her Sacramento yard. From the moment I opened the box, the house has smelled like lemon, Joye (sorry, I couldn't resist).

I've had a lot of fun giving them to Virginians who have never had the pleasure of one, preserving some, and today I'm going to give freezing them a try.

I heard that you just need to slice them, put them on cookie sheets, then freeze; once they are frozen stiff, remove them from the cookie tray and put them in an airtight bag.

For those of you new to preserving lemons, my recipe and technique can be found here: http://lkcafe.blogspot.com/2009/10/lemons-and-their-well-preserved-punch.html

Talking turkey... prices

One thing for which I'm not thankful as Thanksgiving approaches is that I couldn't justify spending four times as much to buy the turkeys for our free night-before-Thanksgiving dinner from a local farm. I called them all; the lowest price per pound was $5.25. When feeding 8-10 people, that's certainly less than the same amount of beef tenderloin, even taking into account the bones. But when you're talking between 50 and 100 people, one does have to consider the total cost. I did get one fresh, organic turkey to cook salt-free. I thought about doing each turkey with a different seasoning, but decided that may be a little too ambitious. Maybe next year. This year, we're just going to focus on delicious.

BTW, I just heard on the Today show that the average number of calories consumed in a traditional Thanksgiving dinner is 4,000. Be careful out there, people.

Lusting for lemons

One of the most lovely parts about winter in Sacramento was when people with lemon trees would bring in big bags of lemons to give away. (Note to California friends: If you could send me a box, tell me the weight and I'll send you an addressed and prepaid UPS label to put on it.) 

Three things I love to make and use in cooking require quantities of unblemished lemons: preserved lemons, lemon vinegar and limoncello. I saw this tip today on Chowhound:

The most important piece of advice for making homemade limoncello, says Delucacheesemonger, is to use food-grade grain alcohol instead of vodka to infuse your lemons. “The additional alcohol, or perhaps lack of water, leaches more oil from the zest. Difference is dramatic,” says Delucacheesemonger. Zest your lemons and use only the yellow part for limoncello infusion, sayskosmonut. Infuse the zests in grain alcohol for around three weeks. You’ll know it’s ready “when the zests appear to be almost crunchy,” says kosmonut. Then combine your infused alcohol with an equal volume of clear simple syrup.

I've had luck using vodka, but it does take about a month for the zest to whiten and the liquid to turn yellow.