Related Resources • My Favorite Gadgets Index

Related Recipes • Sour Cream and Lemon Cake  • Baked Lemon Shrimp with Garlic • Lemon Thins  • Basil, Mint and Orange Vinaigrette

Elsewhere on the Web • Zesters

The first time I cooked a recipe that called for lemon zest, I was very puzzled. I had cooked with lemon juice, lemon peel and lemon slices, but I had never heard of lemon zest. Thinking it was some kind of unusual spice, I searched my supermarket's spice offerings and the baking department since it was an ingredient for a cake. I expected to find some kind of powdered ingredient in a jar. Eventually, through lots of embarrassing questions, I learned that zest is the colored part of lemon, orange or lime peels. It contains the flavorful oils of the fruit's skin, without the bitter part of the white pith. Zest is often used in citrus cakes and muffins, but you'll also use it in salad dressings, vegetable and rice dishes, or even meat sauces.

There are several ways to harvest the zest from the peel. You can pare it with a sharp paring knife. You can grate it with a small handheld grater. Or you can purchase a zester which is the most efficient and attractive way to remove the zest. It's difficult with a paring knife to avoid peeling off some of the pith, and with a grater, the zest often turns into an unattractive mush. A zester removes the zest in attractive, thin strips that can be used as is, or minced into smaller pieces depending on your recipe.