Nigel Slater’s recipes for roast shallots with couscous, and lemon cakes

Bright citrus for couscous and cakes – or just to savour

I bought a bag of lemons, complete with their leaves – lemons so beautiful I kept them in a shallow dish in the kitchen for several days, just to look at them. I often picked them up to squeeze and sniff. I occasionally caught my finger on the sharp barbs that hide on their stems, like the thorns on roses. I pierced their skin with my thumbnail and inhaled, a smell bright and sharp and cleansing to mark the days I have always felt are the start of a new term.

I roasted the first, sliced in half, with large shallots whose flesh sweetened in the heat of the oven, and tossed them with pearls of fat, chewy couscous. The second and third I peeled with a vegetable peeler, shaved off any pith, then painstakingly set about shredding it with a small, razor-sharp knife. Far finer than I would slice orange peel for marmalade, these tiny strips of lemon were cooked with sugar and water, bubbled down like jam, scenting the house with citrus.

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