A Blog from Greece – Life at The Lemon Tree on Crete                      
Lemons from our lemon trees - You can guess by our name The Lemon Tree that we have lemon trees. Yes, you would be right; we have a number of lemon trees. There is one in our main garden that casts shade over the front patio, this has produced a lot of lemons over the years but seems to be having a quiet spell this season, although saying that it will probably completely surprise us and start popping lemons out at an alarming speed later in the year.

We have one in the middle courtyard that got a bit out of hand over the last couple of years after a bounty of lemons and started to think it was a tall pine tree and so needed to be taken in hand a little.

What is startling about the lemons from the trees is the fresh zingy taste and often the amount of juice they contain. They come complete of course with no wax exterior and smell so divine you would want to grow lemons in your garden after a taste. If you rub your hands around them you instantly start to smell like you have had a bath in lemon oil; just don’t start taking your clothes off and rub the whole body. Alternatively  you can mix yourself a little afternoon drink, a vodka and tonic with a slice of lemon and cucumber or a gin and tonic; nothing like that sharpness of taste that almost brings you back to feeling normal on an unbearably hot and sunny day.  

When in the UK I would go to the supermarket and buy theses lovely little lemons in knitted bags, they would be shiny and the shape of them was so uniform with not an edge out of place and all the same tone of colour. Forget that here - lemons come in all different shapes and sizes, some being incredibly ugly indeed. All seem to be the brightest yellow and they have a strong smell which is simply wonderful, even the leaves and the stems smell of lemon. One thing to beware of is the tree as it has the biggest thorns I have ever seen and they are potential weapons that can pierce and bloody hurt like hell and leave a bruise which is sore for a few days.

It is hard to believe that these lovely little (or sometimes large items) come from such a harmful tree; the birds seem to hover around the lemon trees so perhaps the thorns were a way of nature protecting its bounty from being eaten / pecked at before netting was invented.

The keeping quality of lemons is not so good (I guess that is why they end up being waxed for the supermarkets….) By adopting a number of different ideas you can help preserve them; I have started to make a lemon marmalade and with the addition of ginger it can make and transform a hot buttery slice of toast into something else and we were surprised how popular these little jars were in the restaurant last year. It had seemed a mad idea at first to make lemon marmalade – what would it taste like?

Who would want to buy it? But surprisingly it tasted rather good indeed and we sold quite a lot of it. It was an enjoyable process to do and a good technique to build ideas for the future.
Anita made some lemon curd last year and it proved to be successful and will be making little pots up again this year for the family and for little Easter presents in the village. It is something very homelike that you just occasionally get the odd homesick craving for and unless you get a jar sent over you have no chance of finding any on the island unless you make it yourself. It is nice to be able to pass something from ‘home’ onto our Greek neighbours at Easter that has in fact come from our little garden here in Handras.

This coming year we are going to salt the lemons and do something around a Moroccan principle and idea by cutting the flesh of the lemon and pushing salt into them and then putting them in a part lemon juice, keeping them in a sealed jar; this seems to be a lovely idea. Of course I will pop something else into the jar to give it something a little bit different and desired as always; it is in my mad head to add my own little twist and it gives it another interest to follow up on. I do think that a nice cut of lamb or a lamb steak would be lovely with a spoon of scented couscous and a half chopped lemon that has been salted; that would be quite marvellous as the flavours would complement each other.

To have a course to give the taste buds an awakening and refresh the palate would also be quite different; we propose to stuff our lemons with a homemade lemon sorbet (with a twist of course). Our ethos is of simple foods but with a touch of modernism and unexpectedness; sheer pleasure to both prepare and eat, that startles the taste buds a little but does not shock them.

You can also do something traditional like lemon chicken which is a firm favourite across the island; the lemons stuffed inside the chicken gently infuse the meat during cooking. Greek lamb is also getting me excited; they seem to hover over the mountain like they are meant to be there, they are fast and look like they have always been there, if you cannot see them you can open your door and hear the distant rings of their bells - each has a name.

My new dish this year will incorporate lemons, using them in a developed and tested dish before the season starts. I have read Heston Blumenthal’s book ‘Heston’s Fantastical Feasts’ book during quieter moments and have a few different ideas about a recipe that he discusses in the section ‘Road to Morocco’. I will be using different ideas from it to conjure the right ending for me.

I can in truth say I hardly ever follow a recipe – I just see an idea, follow it a bit and then go off down my own path, adapting as an idea or flavour develops. Of course some of the time ideas are developed along the lines of what is available on the island and what we have a glut of. Also in truth even if I did try and follow a recipe half way through I would get excited about doing something else with it or get distracted by something, a taste or a smell that would lead me elsewhere or maybe even get angry with the idea of what I was supposed to be doing (probably the latter as I am not very good at being told what to do and thus instantly rebel as in ‘see what I can do with this’ - but I guess most chefs are like thus and maybe even this is what being a chef is all about?) One of the few recipes I have ever followed to the exact line is for pizza dough from ‘The Mediterranean Diet in Practice’ and this gave perfect results! Maybe because the author gave me the book when he brought his family here for a meal after reading about us, I felt a connection with him and so was able to follow his recipe.

Thus you can probably guess I was never a lover of cookbooks but living out here and via amazon (thank you for free delivery up a mountain – door to door) in the quiet moments of the winter when I am not chasing the boys around the house picking lego up after them or chopping wood I will hunker down with a tomb of a cookbook and delve in and out getting inspired as I go.

Heston uses camel hump in a sort of tajine, called a tanja and adopts a long slow cooking method with many other local ingredients to incorporate a delightful mixture of texture and overall loveliness. Crete being a little low on camels and not sure anyway that, that is what I would want to serve I will be substituting another meat and developing flavours accordingly to suit the base ingredient. But I have a vision of a tajine of meats with prunes and other fruits accompanied with couscous and salted lemons being served in the hot summer months.
This Year’s New Dish - I am at the point then, at the start of this uncertain year of creating a new dish with chicken for the season ahead. I am thinking then along the terms of a tajine, although not being in Morocco might be a disadvantage but there is a lot we can come up with to create some interesting flavours. Taking some ingredients out and putting some in thus giving a slight difference - the lemon tree way is the normal route we follow. I will definitely use the lemons which will be salted in brine this year. And a good zesty flavoured couscous with a little Moroccan taste and style.

I think I will use chicken legs because I find the flavour develops well from here; as it is on the bone the flavour on the leg is quite lovely and will give the wow factor I am after. I will remove the bottom part of the bone, which can be tricky but is good to do - to change the look of the leg and to bulk the meat up giving it a pleasing shape.
After this I will trim the top of the drumstick bone and with a small incision will slip the bottom of the leg over, giving the shape. With just one bone it will be a nicer piece with a good presentation and will cook in a nice even way.
The chicken will be cooked with some different things, like a tagine but my style of a tagine in the oven. It will be quite fruity but the flavour will be surprising to everyone. And hopefully me too! We will have to wait then and see.

I have a feeling that this will be one of the best selling dishes this year, like the ribs and the fish of previous years I have a feeling when something is just right and it all works together.  Thinking of our best sellers, curry has always been a top seller (strangely enough up a Greek mountain, but there it just shows you!!) and fish in ouzo sold well for a few years before I replaced this with a fish in a lovely light batter than has just flown out of the kitchen. The ribs have also been a top seller and heartily enjoyed.  You can find our previous detailed recipe blogs on both curry and ribs  and as this dish develops I will continue to blog about it over the coming months.

Our emphasis in these blogs from Crete is on food because that is what we do at The Lemon Tree, but we aim in these little blogs from Crete to also give a reflection of life in a Greek Village on Crete. Simply put, we live here; have a family here and a business. Thus we encounter daily both the joys and tribulations of life in a Greek village, some of which are familiar to the whole of Crete and Greece, some of which are unique to village life; some which villagers alike share or  are experienced by us as settlers in this land. Alongside these writings you will find recipes and ideas about food.

For previous blog articles please click on the link at the bottom of the ‘blog page’ and if you are searching for a particular food recipe such as curry or food ingredient such as cabbage  – then type in the keyword in the search box on the website and Hey Presto! This will bring up the recipes that contain this ingredient.

We write the blogs together; mostly the food stuff is Mark and some of the other bits are Anita or what we come to through general chat (or heated discussion, depending on the day….) Mark is dyslexic - he writes a first draft, hands     it over to Anita (who puts on her old English teacher’s hat) to redraft and develop, adding a bit here and there; this seems to work!
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