Preserved Lemon

Preserved Lemons are a staple of North African food. All you have to do is heavily salt lemons and leave it on your counter for a month. I like to use 1 part sugar to 2 parts salt. Classic aromatic flavourings are cinnamon, star anise, black pepper, bay leaf, chili. Leave spices whole.
Usually lemons are quartered lengthwise with the cuts not going through so the lemon is held together at the bottom. Cover each lemon with your cure (salt, sugar, spices) and pack into a jar. Agitate daily and the lemons will release juice that mixes with the cure to form the brine that not only keeps lemons edible for months in hot African sun, but makes them absolutely lemony delicious. You can use them anytime but they are really ready after a month or so, when they should be refrigerated. What you're really after on these little suckers is the yellow part of the skin. The white pith is really bitter. To use remove a lemon from the brine and give it a quick rinse. 'Filet' a quarter with a sharp knife so you have just yellow skin. This can be tricky. So here's a better way...

Wash lemons. Peel them with a vegetable peeler into a jar. Try to get just yellow, no white. Cut in half and juice lemons that now have no skins through a sieve into the jar. Add a Tablespoon of unrefined sugar and 2 Tablespoons of sea salt PER LEMON! (about). Add any aromats you like. Shake it. Leave it. For at least a week. Chop it up really small and mix into grain salads, put on vegetables, use with meats or to finish stews*...

*Citrus peel becomes very bitter when cooked too long, it's a finisher..