Cooking with lemon / lime peel.

[xiaobao12]

I am fully aware of zesting and how it works. I am referring to actually cooking with lemon / lime slices.

Once, my friend made a delicious sort of stew and he got creative and sliced a lime in half and inserted the ends face down into the stew to cook on low. Of course, the result was a bitter one, because of the pith (right?)

I've seen lemon slices baked with fish (etc.) or pan-seared with chicken (etc.) and bitterness isn't a problem.

Is it different with lime? Pith is pith right? So how come when the pith is cooked with the food (like a baked salmon with lemon slices), there is not a problem with the bitterness?

Thanks for your advice.

[pdxgastro]

I think the pith made the stew bitter because the stew has other flavoring ingredients in it and they 'fought' each other. I think with the fish it's not a problem because it's just fish, maybe salt and pepper, and the citrus. Does that make sense?

[xiaobao12]

Hey pdx. I am trying to understand what you said but I don't yet...

Funny, that on my right, as I type this, there is a chow tip about making lemonade with whole lemons. I actually tried that with orange. It tasted great right away but after a few hours, it was extremely bitter - I'm sure it was the pith.