Introduction

Lemons are famous for their amazing juice. Full world wide consensus here, no need to elaborate. Their skin and pulp however are a different story. Most people don’t use the skin and throw away the pulp. But these two are an under appreciated, underused flavour and aroma bombs. 
Apply some heat to them, all the liquids evaporate and you have now concentrated the flavour and effectively created a dried lemon stock cube that can be used a million ways. Take it to the next level by adding different spices and you are on your way to guerrilla flavour warfare. I used za’atar, garlic powder and cardamon but you can mix it up and use oregano, curry powder, cinnamon etc, depending on what you are after. So now you got new flavours in your disposal but these slices are also blessed in the looks department which means you can use them as fantastic unique garnish or decoration. It's dead easy, all you need is lemons, heat and time. 

Use them whole or broken into little pieces in salads, on oven vegetables, spicy stews, fish, lamb or even cocktails. Grind them together with rock salt and sprinkle over fries or use as a dry rub for BBQ meat.

Ingredients

5 organic lemons
Za’atar spice mix
Garlic powder
Cardamon powder
Smoked salt (or normal fine salt)

Method

Preheat your oven to 80c with fan. While the oven is heating, line an oven rack with baking paper. Slice all your lemons to about 1/2cm thick slices and remove all the seeds from the slices. Place the slices on the baking paper in tight rows like in the image. Sprinkle the spices generously on all the lemon slices. Put in the oven for 3 - 3 1/2 hours making sure to leave the oven’s door just a little open so that moisture can escape. I use a wine cork to press between the oven’s close-circuit button and the oven’s door. when all the lemons are dry and crunchy, remove from the oven. Let them cool down and keep in an airtight container in the fridge.