Limes
Salt Lime
Limes have a thick skin that salts well like most lemon cultivars. If they are too over-ripe though the skin becomes thin & soft, when they are better used for marmalade.
Recipe to come...
Try them cooked with wine-braised beef shin or use in recipes as an olive substitute.
Carrot Salad
Just as we are using the last of the carrots, lifted & stored in the fridge, our annual limes are delivered. Over-ripe limes work best in this recipe: don't try using green lime juice, better instead would be Meyer lemon.
Grate 500gr carrot into a large bowl - grating creates more bulk than you might imagine. Add juice & zest of 1-2 ripe limes/lemons, 1/4 cup caster sugar (sounds a lot but the result is not overly sweet), 1/2ts ground cumin & 1/4ts each salt & cinnamon. Add diced salt lime and tabasco to taste or instead 1tb orange blossom water.
Leave to marinate at least an hour - better still, overnight. A lot of juice is drawn out, making the carrot wilty, yet a slight crunch still remains. Garnish with minced parsley, feta & black olives, though it's tasty enough without these additions.
We are given limes & grapefruit from a local citrus orchard every November, when they pick the last of the old fruit off their trees to make way for the new crop. As with our own-grown produce, excess usually leads to finding new recipes to use it all.
