Dicing a lemon

When I use Meyer lemons, I will often use the entire lemon except for the two ends, generally diced and cooked with greens or other vegetables. I finally figured out the best way to dice them. From left to right:

1. Cut off ends, which will be discarded.
2. Cut lemon in half vertically.
3. Taking each half in turn, placed flat side down and then cut across to make semicircular slabs.
4. Cut across the slabs to make dice.

The slabs are actually easier to cut with a chef’s knife rather than a paring knife because the longer cutting edge lets you draw the knife in a long (and thus easy) slice.

There are seeds, but I don’t bother taking them out. Instead, I just eat them when I encounter them in the dish. 

See also: My earlier post on how to peel a lemon when you want lemon pulp (much better than lemon juice).

When you don’t want the peel

Lately, I’ve wanted to used diced lemons without the peel. So I first peel them, using the method in the link above. Then I cut each half into two slabs and dice the slabs. Voilà! Diced lemon sans peel.