Lemon Aspen

Lemon Aspen has a wonderfully tart lemon taste with a hint of grapefruit. It works well with Quandongs and Muntries. 

100g of lemon aspen equals something close to the juice, zest and pulp of about 6 large lemons

A great way to use lemon aspen is to cook it out with a little water in a saucepan. You then puree it and cool it down. You can now use this in a dressing, cheesecake, marinade or just about anything.

Taste Australia Bush Food Shop sells  Lemon Aspen  Powder

Lemon Aspen Cheesecake – .

In a bowl, combine 250gm Cream cheese, 1 tbsp cream and 10g (2 tsp) Lemon Aspen powder and beat until smooth

In a separate bowl, add 500mls cream, heaped tspn icing sugar, tspn vanilla essence and 10g (2 tsp) Lemon Aspen powder and whip until stiff.

Adjust for desired sweetness.

Lemon Aspen Aioli
Blend 2 garlic cloves, 1 teaspoon Tasman Sea Salt, 2 egg yolks, 2 tablespoons water, 2 tablespoons lemon aspen juice, 2 teaspoons mustard
Then slowly add 1 cup Macadamia Nut oil
Excellent with prawns or crudites

Lemon Aspen Desert Lime Roasted Chicken

Creating a meal with ingredients on hand is a challenge and in most cases a never to be repeated dining experience. Unless I specifically shop for a recipe I usually have to substitute.

The centrepiece of my meal came from Tobie Puttock’s “Cook like an Italian”, one of many cookbooks in my collection. Tobie’s Roast Chicken with Apple, Sage and Onion took on a new twist and I here’s what I did.

I mixed 30gm of butter with a teaspoon of Mountain Pepperleaf and a dessertspoon of  Finger Lime Powder.

The Finger Lime Peel resulted from an experimentation with a kilo of Pink Finger Limes. As well as making a very nice (quickly consumed) Finger Lime Liqueur, I made Preserved Finger Lime (a la Preserved Lemon), Finger Lime Aioli (from the flesh – also quickly consumed) and dried the resultant peel.

The butter mixture was pushed into the pocket created by loosening the flesh between the breast meat and the skin.

A few twists of salt were emptied into the cavity before stuffing the bird with a mixture of 1 onion (peeled and quartered), 1 apple (peeled and quartered), 1 garlic clove, 3 slices of Speck (diced) and 2 tablespoons of Lemon Aspen pulp. I then secured the opening with a couple of toothpicks.

The Lemon Aspen pulp was a result of experimenting with a kilo of Lemon Aspen. Immersing the fruit into the liqueur drew out the tartness and left us with an extremely palatable fruit. The weeks of immersion in liquid also softened the hard apple core like centre. I also kept a quantity aside to juice and used that to make mayonnaise and the pulp left over from the juicing was frozen into ice cubes which produce approx a tablespoon of thick liquid when thawed.

I greased the baking dish with olive oil and placed a few slices of sweet potato in its centre, enough to hold the stuffed chicken above the baking dish. It was placed in a 180C oven for 10 minutes.

Then I poured over a mix of 125ml Desert Lime Liqueur and 125ml Dry Sherry and returned it to the oven.

Desert Lime Liqueur was once again from experimentation. The tartness of the Desert Lime leached into the liquid and left a fruit that is excellent on a cheese platter.

As the chicken roasted. I basted it with the liquid every 20 minutes or so until done, a couple of hours later. About an hour before it was due I added chunks of peeled Jap pumpkin to the baking dish.

The chicken and vegetables were lifted out and set to one side to rest. and I thickened the remaining baking dish juices and as the chicken fat separated (I don’t know if this has a name) I poured it off.
I then served it with Stir Fried Garden Fresh Greens (capsicum, shallots, spinach, mint and sliced apple).

My garden is a riot of surprises as this is where I bury my kitchen scraps. This year we’ve had pumpkin, sweet potato, capsicum, rock melon, honey dew melon, paw paw and tomatoes. I always grow my greens – spinach, rocket, parsley, mint, basil, shallots and chives.

The meal was a success, in fact my mouth is watering at the thought.