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This is a lemon. Obviously.
This is a Ponderosa lemon though, and
these things are pretty interesting.
They are so much bigger than a regular
lemon. It is like if you 10 of these and
combined them into 1 fruit. This is a
lot of citrus right here. Although these
are called Ponderosa Lemons They are not
the same species as your traditional
lemon that you get at the supermarket.
Lemons, I believe, are a natural hybrid
between the citron and the bitter orange.
So if you combine those together you get
a lemon. It is a little bit more
complicated than that but basically
that is what happens. The Ponderosa
lemon, it is a citron, so it has one of
the same parents, and a Pomelo.
Which might have to do with why it is
so big. Pomelos are really big.
Before I cut this open I'd like to a shout
out to Tyler and Melissa from Myrtle Beach
South Carolina. I love trying different
citrus hybrids as there is so many of them
so it is cool to try another one. So, guys Thank You very much.
Wow! The smell on this is amazing!
It is like so much stronger than a regular
lemon. It smells a little bit more like a
Citron. Which if you are wondering what
a Citron smells like, It smells more like
a lemon candy I guess.
Here is the inside. There is a seed there.
It is about the size of a regular lemon
Seed. you can see that the Ponderosa
lemon has a very thick pith which is a lot
like the Pomelo. Pomelos have a thick pith
like that. Citrons do too. Citrons,
sometimes when you cut them open
they are like all pith, 99.9% pith.
so you can see quite a difference there
in flesh to skin ratio. With a regular
lemon you can see there is very fine pulp.
Not much there at all it turns to juice.
But with the Ponderosa lemon there is
some chunks. It is a little bit chunkier
than the regular lemon. The regular lemon
has a couple of seeds in it. It is not
seedless but it is nearly seedless.
The Ponderosa lemon has several
There are a ton of seeds in this one.
I know some people can take a bite out
of a lemon and to them that is a good time
I like sour fruits but I am not one of
of those people. So this is going to be a
little bit painful but I am going to try
them side by side. First I am going to
start with the regular lemon.
It is a 10, 10 out of 10.
Here is a fourth of a regular lemon
and here is a fourth of the Ponderosa
Lemon. It is funny to me. it looks like
you took one of these and blew it up.
This is the lemon for giants.
Let me take a palate cleanser here.
Ok,
It is different. as strong as lemons are,
when you actually taste one it is
surprisingly mild in flavor. The sourness
is really high but the flavor is low.
With this one, that flavor is higher.
The sourness,
The sourness on this
is about the same, give or take.
It is maybe a little less, but I
wouldn't go so far as to say it is a 9
it is like a 9.5. it is almost a 10 but
it is not quite as sour as this.
The flavor on this is nicer. It is not
just sourness and that is all. There is
more going on here. Yeah, if you want
to recreate what this tastes like, take a
glass of lemon juice, good quality lemon
juice and a glass of Pomelo juice, good
quality Pomelo Juice, Mix them together
and take a sip of that. It is kind of what
this is like. It is edging more towards
Lemon than Pomelo but that Pomelo
taste is in there. What is nice about this
is the sourness is about the same.
If you would use this in any recipie that
calls for lemon, It would taste like what
it needs to taste like. It would have the
right sort of sourness to it. However it
would have a little bit of a different
flavor because of that extra Pomelo
kind of taste in it. I am not done. I want
to take advantage of this pith here.
There is so much pith there that I think
candying this would be a really good Idea.
But first I want to just try it on it's own.
Ah, There we go.
As you can see how much pith we are
dealing with here. We got like a half an
inch of pith there. First I am going to
take a bite out of the white part.
There is a little bit of bitterness there
but it is not that bad. Next I will try a
piece with the outer rind.
That part is bitter. That tastes like a
regular lemon rind.
Actually, maybe a little stronger than a
lemon rind. It tastes better though.
Regular lemon rinds have a bit of a
medicinal taste to them. A little bit in
the direction of a lemon Ricola cough drop
The white bit on the inside, however is
quite nice.
Ok so I just have a half of the Ponderosa
Lemon. I think that is plenty. I am going
to cut these into little strips like this.
That is plenty. there is no need for me
to do the whole thing. There is no way
I am going to eat all of that. While you
do this you could also put some other
rinds in here. Orange rind or other
regular lemon, or lime rind. Just one
thing to keep in mind is that not all
citruses have a sweet pith. So a lot of
recipes calling for regular lemon will
have you scrape out as much of the white
as you can, actually take a spoon and
scrape out the inside. That way you do not
get as much bitterness. On here that part
is sweet so you want to keep that on there
I have just submerged them in water.
That is going to go on the heat.
We are boiling. Going to let this boil for
about 30 seconds and then change out
the water.
So I drained out the peels and
added fresh water to this and now it
is going back on the heat to bring it
to a boil again. Basically going to
repeat this process, boiling and draining
out the water until the peels are not
bitter anymore. With a lemon it usually
takes 3 or 4 boils. With an orange it is
usually about 1 or 2. Grapefruit can
take more, like 5 or 6 . With this one, I
Don't know. Right now I just took a
little nibble of it, it is still pretty
bitter. I am going to guess that this is
going to take 3 boilings before it is
going to be ready to go. You also do
not want to over boil it. You want it to
be a little bit bitter. If you over boil
it, it will not have any flavor at all.
you have to find the right balance.
we are going with 3 and then I will
give it a try.
It is still a little bit bitter but
much less. It is about half as bitter as
it was before. I am going to keep a little
of the bitterness there. I could probably
go one more time but then it would be
at the risk of loosing some of the lemony
flavor. We are keeping with this. I am
going to separate these out of the liquid.
One cup of water, 2 cups of water,
2 cups of sugar, bring to a boil.
In go the rinds.
I am going to keep it on
a simmer for 1 hour.
It has been in here for about an hour.
It is kind of glassy looking. That means
these are good to go. I have, over here, a
a plate with some sugar on it. I also have
this pizza pan, rusty looking but
What can you do? I am at an Air B&B right
now. So don't criticize how dull my
knives are. It is not mine.
I am going to strain this syrup into here.
This syrup, by the way, is good stuff.
so don't throw it away. Mix it with water
or seltzer or whatever and it is going to taste good.
Yep, If you are the sort of person that
likes to put lemon and sugar in your tea
or ice tea, it is a simple syrup so it
blends in well in Ice tea too. This works
really well. It goes especially well with
the Bergamont in the Earl Gray.
The candy goes into the sugar.
Roll it around a little bit.
Shake it off a bit and lay it out on the
surface here. Do that with all of these.
Do a few at a time I guess. I don't want
to go too crazy cause that will clump
up the sugar.
Alright, Lets give it a shot.
It's good. I think eating these on their
own is not my favorite thing in the world
but they are good. It reminds me a little
bit of like those little gummy gems that
used to exist in the 90's. Is that useful
to anybody? I would love to take some of
this and put it on top of some Ice cream
or pie, cheesecake, or something like that
cake. This would be
a really good garnish and is pretty
chocked full of flavor. The bitterness
that was there is all but gone. There is
a little hint of it there. It is mostly
sweetness and strong lemon flavor.
It doesn't taste greatly different than
a regular lemon rind candy. I guess
it is edging a bit towards grapefruit
candy but grapefruit and lemon like the
flesh, but a little more lemon than
grapefruit for sure. So that is really
tasty. Thank you so much to Tyler
and Melissa for sending this to me.
I will see you all next time. Bye-Bye
I'd like to give a shout out to Smarter Every Day, Alt-pod and the
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Thanks so much guys, Bye-Bye.