Is bottled lemon or lime juice good enough for most recipes?
Those little plastic bottles of lemon and lime juice might look bright and happy, but the stuff that squirts out of them is best left right where it came from — in the bottle. I am in no way an ingredient snob. My balsamic vinegar is $5 and the wine I use for cooking is $3. But when it comes to citrus, I am adamant about the fruit being fresh. As soon as the juice is out of your citrus, it starts oxidizing, which makes it taste metallic and almost chemical. As an experiment, taste some freshly squeezed lemon juice and bottled lemon juice side by side, and see which one you prefer. What can you do with citrus besides squirting it on your fish? Lemons and limes make excellent salad dressings. I actually prefer them to vinegars for making vinaigrettes. Adding a squirt of lemon or lime to your soups will balance the saltiness of the broth and the sweetness of your vegetables and make them taste wonderfully rounded and complex. And any creamy and buttery sauce can use a squirt of citrus (us
