Candied Lemon Slices

Candied lemon slices are beautiful perched atop a cake but we have been known to eat them as is. They are a lovely combination of tart and sweet and they are wonderfully sticky.

I’ve made candied peel before but never with whole slices so this was kind of an experiment. I can’t tell you how pleased I am with how they turned out.

Tomorrow I am sharing a recipe for lemon almond cakes topped with these beauties!

Ingredients
1 Meyer lemon
1/2 cup or 100g sugar, plus 1 tablespoon sugar for sprinkling
1/4 cup or 60ml water

Method
Cut the ends off of the lemons and then slice the rest of the lemons into 1/8-inch-thick rounds; discard the seeds.

In a large skillet over a low heat, stir together 1/2 cup or 100g of sugar and water until the sugar is completely dissolved. Squeeze in any juice left behind in the ends of the lemon.

Add lemon slices, and simmer gently, keeping slices in a single layer.

Bast occasionally with the simple syrup and cook for about 14 to 16 minutes or until the middles are slightly translucent and rinds are softened. You can also turn the slices if you do it carefully.

Preheat your oven to 100°F or 38°C and line a pan with baking parchment.

Lift each lemon slice out of the pan with a spatula so the syrup can drain off and place it on the prepared baking pan.

Sprinkle it with the additional sugar.

The simmering syrup can be cooled and kept refrigerated in a clean jar to be used for glazing cakes or making cocktails.

Put the pan in your preheated oven for one hour, or until the peels have almost dried out. We like them still a little bit sticky.

Use to decorate cakes or, as I mentioned before, you can just eat them!

Enjoy!

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Java Dry Rub Sous Vide Pork Roast

This Java Dry Rub Sous Vide Pork Roast is made with a Boston butt roast, covered in a savory spice blend. It’s cooked with a sous vide precision cooker for 18 hours, then finished off in a hot oven, which keeps it tender and juicy. Start this recipe one day ahead of serving time. Yes, it’s a long time but most of it is hands-off. Set the sous vide and go about your life.

I know I’m a little weird but I think the sous vide machine humming away in a corner is a happy sound because it means another perfectly cooked whatever is in our future. When my son-in-law gave me the sous vide precision cooker for Christmas several years ago, I had no idea how much fun I’d have experimenting and playing with it.

One thing that amuses me about the sous vide process is that if you are cooking a large piece of meat, you have to plan and cook several meals in the interim. So different from my usual "choose meat - season meat - cook meat - serve meat right now" method of meal planning. I enjoy the planning as much as the process: which cut to choose, how to season it, then figuring out the optimum time and temperature.

Java Dry Rub Sous Vide Pork Roast

Total time for this recipe is 19 hours, 18 in the precision cooker and then 1 hour in a hot oven to brown the outside. In order to simplify this recipe, I have published dry rub ingredients and how-to on another page. Click here for those instructions.

Ingredients
1 boneless Boston butt roast (about 6-7 lbs or 2.7-3.2kg)
3 tablespoons java dry rub, divided
Time!
Optional for roasting: add potatoes and carrots for a full meal!

Method
Make the java dry rub. (See note above.)

Thoroughly massage 2 tablespoons of the rub into your pork roast.

Tuck it into a large leak-proof bag. Slowly lower the bag into a bucket or sink filled with water to vacuum pack the roast and remove all the air from inside the bag. Seal tightly.

Set your precision cooker to 145°F or 63°C – this temperature and time will create a sliceable tender pork roast.

When the bath is at temperature, add sealed bag with pork and cover with foil or plastic wrap. Leave to sous vide for 18 hours.

When the time is up, if you aren’t planning to roast the pork immediately, you can refrigerate it, still in the vacuum bag until you are ready. If the roast is completely chilled, keep in mind that it will need extra time in the oven to get up to serving temperature again.

To finish the roast in the oven: Adjust the oven rack to lower-middle position and preheat oven to 400°F or 200°C. Remove pork from sous vide bag and carefully blot dry with paper towels.

Rub reserved spice mixture into the surface of the pork. Place pork in a large iron skillet or roasting pan and place it in the preheated oven. If you’d like to turn this into a full roast dinner, add some peeled potato and carrot chunks that have been tossed in some oil or duck fat. Roast about 1 hour.

Remove the roast from the oven and leave to rest for about 10 minutes before carving.

I promise, it melts in your mouth! Any drippings can be used to make gravy.

Enjoy!

It’s MultiCooker Monday again! Many thanks to Sue of Palatable Pastime and Wendy of A Day in the Life on the Farm for their behind the scenes work. Check out all of the great recipes my friends are sharing, using their various small appliances.

• Carrot Halwa from A Day in the Life on the Farm 
• Crispy Air Fried Cod Fillets from Karen's Kitchen Stories 
• Homemade Chicken Stock (Crockpot) from Sid's Sea Palm Cooking 
• Instant Pot Lasagna Soup from Making Miracles 
• Java Dry Rub Sous Vide Pork Roast from Food Lust People Love 
• Lauki Bahar - Pressure Cooker from Sneha's Recipe 
• Punjabi Goat Curry (Instant Pot) from Palatable Pastime

Multicooker Monday is a blogger group created by Sue of Palatable Pastime for all of us who need encouragement to make better use of our small appliances like slow cookers, Instant Pots, Air Fryers, rice cookers and sous vide machines. We get together every third Monday of the month to share our recipes. If you are a food blogger who would like to post with us, please request to join our Facebook group.

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Java Dry Spice Rub

Ground roasted coffee beans add a wonderful aroma and flavor to this Java Dry Spice Rub. It’s perfect on pork chops, steak, roasts, ribs or, who am I kidding, just about any meat. In fact, sprinkle a little on your pumpkin or butternut squash before roasting. You won’t be sorry.

I must confess that I am normally a purist when it comes to seasoning chops or steak. A little salt and pepper is about all I use because I want to taste the meat. Store-bought spice mixes tend to be too heavy on the salt for me and, stupid as this sounds, it hadn’t occurred to me to mix my own.

A few years ago, though, I was fortunate enough to attend a cooking session with one of the chefs from Certified Angus beef and he shared his recipe for a Santa Maria spice mix. Far from masking the meat flavors, I was amazed by how it brought out the best in the beef.

Java Dry Spice Rub 

Now that I’m a spice rub convert, I’ve been researching different recipes. Coffee is a popular ingredient, along with garlic or onion powder, pepper and salt. I’ve used this spice rub on vegetables, beef and chicken, but it is especially good with pork. This recipe makes 1 pint jar or 135g.

Ingredients
2 tablespoons kosher or Himalayan pink rock salt
2 tablespoon mixed peppercorns (or black peppercorns)
2 tablespoons cumin seeds
1/3 cup or 30g your favorite roasted coffee, medium grind
2 tablespoons or 25g brown sugar
1 tablespoon smoked paprika
1 tablespoon garlic powder

Method
Use a mortar and pestle or spice grinder to grind your salt, peppercorns and cumin seeds quite finely.

Add in the coffee, sugar, smoked paprika and garlic powder and mix well.

Store in an airtight container and use within a couple of months for optimum flavor. (If it lasts that long! I immediately started putting it on everything.)

This java dry spice rub is especially lovely on pork.

Come back tomorrow when I’ll be sharing a recipe for a whole pork roast cooked sous vide and finished off in the oven.

Enjoy!

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