Smithy

Ian, I'm so glad you and your wife went ahead with the tagine! Now, I'd like to explore the topic of "bugs" and decomposition in the preserved lemons. I hope someone with the right knowledge will say "you're right on" or "you're all wet" - and the why of it. I've been speculating on another forum, far away, that not much really could grow in that acidic environment...lemon juice and salt seem a pretty hostile environment, no matter how tasty when I'm biting into them. My last batch of preserved lemons never really cured, and it took on a distinct smell of ammonia. I don't know that there would have been any bugs as such, but I decided there was a chemical breakdown in progress and threw them out - bugs or no. It smelled icky. This more or less goes along with Wolfert's statement, although I wouldn't have likened it to furniture polish either. (Excuse me while I fawn a moment: Paula Wolfert! Wow!) ..er...ahem...sorry So... really, could there be any bugs growing in that preserve? If not, is it just a chemical decomposition, generating strange compounds - the unliving, so to speak - that causes them to go "off"? I realize this may fall into the "so what - cyanide is deadly but it ain't alive" category for most readers, but I'm really interested in whether and how preserved lemons could go bad. Enquiring minds, and all that - Nancy

Oh, how this thread makes me laugh, and Sleepy_Dragon makes me laugh the most! I have on the order of 160 cookbooks, not counting the copy of _The Kitchen Detective_ on its way, and not counting the strays crammed into binders, the piles of interesting newspaper sections cluttering the corner of the spare bedroom, and the recipe boxes and magazines. I've been thinking it was pathological excess until I stumbled onto this thread and discovered (my poor husband!) that I'm Not The Only One Who Collects Cookbooks, and that Things Could Be (Far) Worse. Then, I read Sleepy_Dragon's comments, echoing my own futile efforts at managing the wealth: "No more until I've dealt with what I already have." Bwaahaahaa! How often have I said that?

This sounds a *lot* like what I know as thomeyya, or domeyya, or dumeya (it's a real problem writing Arabic words in English). Anyway, the stuff is terrific - although the version I know is extremely garlicky, so it must be a slightly different version than yours. I wish I could tell you I have the answer, but my efforts - based on recipes from various cookbooks and internet searches - don't come close to reproducing the recipe I'm after. I'm ending up with a lot of odd salad dressings because I can't bear to throw the stuff out. Garlic, salt, lemon juice and oil figure in all the recipes, and the rest is either mayonnaise or yogurt to thicken it - or neither - but in any case there isn't enough mayonnaise to turn it into aioli. The basic steps, in case you want to experiment, seem to be to whirl the garlic, salt and lemon juice into a paste, then start blending in oil, then blend in the thickener if you're going to try one. I'm even wondering about egg whites. I will certainly post back if I succeed in reproducing the version I'm after. In the meantime, keep googling around for "garlic dip" or "dhumeyya" or...well, you have to be creative with the spelling...