Lemon juice and zest -- the grated skin of lemons -- add tanginess to dishes including main courses and desserts. Compatible fruits combined with lemon create tantalizing fragrances and memorable flavors. The ascorbic acid in a dash of lemon juice helps other fruits, such as strawberries and apples, retain color when cooked or mixed in fruit salad. From breakfast to dinner, this tart citrus combines deliciously and healthfully with many fruits.
Apples and Pears
Lemon is an anti-oxidant that keeps pears and apples from turning brown when sliced. It also heightens the flavor of these relatively mild fruits, which are rich in complex carbohydrates and work well in breakfast baked goods. The whole grain pear bread at the Oprah website includes lemon zest, whereas the fluffy apple pancake at the Diane's Desserts website contains lemon juice. Although lemon juice is rich in vitamin C, the heat from baking causes it to break down.
Lunchtime Fruit Salads
Fruit salads are efficient, low-fat, sweet treats that are ideal for lunch. They seldom require heating, so they are good sources of complex carbohydrates, vitamins and minerals. Lemon juice gives fruit salad extra zip. It also maintains the fresh flavor and look of quickly aging ingredients, such as banana slices. The Joy of Baking website creates a unique vanilla-lemon syrup in which to marinate mixed fruits. Although heated, the syrup is cooled before adding the lemon and fruit, so this avoids nutrient loss.
Berry Dinner Salsas
Raspberries and other red fruits also turn brown when cooked unless their color is preserved with ascorbic acid from sources such as lemons. Most of us likely think of desserts such as strawberry rhubarb pie or fruit salad when considering berry dishes containing lemon juice. It is often an important ingredient in fruit salsas that are used to marinate or encrust chicken, beef, pork and fish entrees, such as a jalapeno-raspberry salsa published in "The New York Times" and a milder cilantro-raspberry mix at the Healthy Apple website.
Peachy Desserts
The color and flavor of peach desserts also benefit from lemon juice. "Charlotte Magazine" says that summer "isn't complete" in the South without peach pie. It shares a variation called "Crunchy Peach Pie Cobbler." The Celiac.com website also offers gluten-free peach cobbler recipes as well as a crust-free recipe involving peaches poached in a lemony syrup highlighted by a bit of rosemary and served over ice cream.
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