Recipe: Sweet and sour lemon sauce

Total time: About 1 hour, plus macerating and cooling times

Servings: Makes about 1/2 cup sauce

Note: Adapted from “Adventures of an Italian Food Lover,” by Faith Heller Willinger. You will need 3 tablespoons of candied fruit for the sauce; the remainder will keep in the refrigerator for several weeks. The sauce keeps for weeks in the refrigerator. Willinger serves it not only with crudo, but also with “almost any simply prepared fish.”

Candied lemon zest

2 lemons

1 orange

6 tablespoons coarse sea salt, divided

1/2 cup wildflower honey

1 cup sugar

1. Peel the zest from the lemons in strips, leaving one-fourth inch of pulp attached to the zest. Peel the orange the same way. Put the zest in a bowl, toss with 2 tablespoons salt, add 1 cup water, and weight down with a small plate to keep the zest submerged for 1 to 2 hours. Rinse and drain; set aside.

2. In a large pot, bring 10 cups of water to a rolling boil. Add the remaining 4 tablespoons of salt and all of the lemon and orange zest. Bring the mixture back to a rolling boil and remove from the heat. Let the zest cool completely in the salted water. Drain in a colander; set aside.

3. In a small pot, combine the honey, sugar and 2 1/4 cups water and bring to a simmer. Add the drained zest and cook over the lowest heat possible, less than a simmer, for 40 minutes. Remove from the heat and let the zest cool in the syrup overnight.

4. The next day, bring the syrup back to a simmer, lower the heat and cook for 1 hour. Remove from the heat and cool completely. Repeat the process one more time, cooking the zest on the lowest heat for 30 minutes. Store the zest in its syrup in a jar, refrigerated. The candied zest will keep for several weeks.

Sauce

3 1/2 lemons

2 tablespoons best-quality olive oil

1 clove garlic

1 tablespoon minced celery

1/4 teaspoon fine sea salt

1/8 teaspoon white pepper

3 tablespoons chopped candied lemon zest

1. Trim three lemons with a knife, cutting the rind away down to the pulp. Section the lemon into wedges, cutting between the white connective membranes. Squeeze the juice from the remains of the lemons into a measuring cup and add the wedges. You should have about 3 tablespoons of juice and one-half cup lemon segments.

2. In a small saucepan, add the olive oil and sauté the garlic and celery over medium heat until the celery barely begins to color, about 1 1/2 minutes. Add the lemon wedges and juice and cook, mashing the mixture with a wooden spoon, until the mixture is pulpy, about 3 minutes. Remove the garlic and add the salt and white pepper. If the sauce is too tart, add a spoonful or two of syrup from the candied zest.

3. Transfer the lemon mixture to a blender and add the candied zest. Blend until smooth. Adjust seasoning as needed. The sauce will keep, refrigerated, for several weeks.

Each tablespoon: 67 calories; 0 protein; 10 grams carbohydrates; 1 gram fiber; 3 grams fat; 0 saturated fat; 0 cholesterol; 170 mg. sodium.