Dried Limes and How to Use Them

Everyone loves citrus, but it’s not always in season – with dried limes, lemons and oranges you’ll always have that zingy citrus flavour handy.

Being winter in the bottom half of the world, it’s citrus season right now and lemons, oranges and limes are abundant. However, that’s not the case all year round and there are times when the cost of limes in particular can be nose-bleedingly high. That’s when having the alternative of dried limes and other citrus totally comes into it’s own.

A stall holder at the Mount Pleasant Farmer’s Market, South Australia’s Woodland Orchard sources and processes local produce from the Mypolonga region. They retail and wholesale a range of value-added fruits, for which they strive to pay above market price to the producers, including a gorgeous range of dried citrus.

Their range first caught my eye at Christmas, when it was beautifully packaged up as gifts, several of which found their way to my own friends and family, but their dried citrus is available all year round and I recently came home with a big bag of it.

Obviously my first thoughts for the use of these attractive sliced dried limes was booze – gin to be precise. Secondly, and once again predictably, I started planning on how to include them in my baking, but it wasn’t long before my brain was buzzing along, coming up with heaps more ways to make the most of them.

The very pretty slices are great for drinks and decoration, but for them to be really versatile I needed them to be in a different form – so I whizzed up a handful in my food processor. The first thing I made was a cake (no surprises there), then I put together this brief list of uses for ground up dried limes (and other dried citrus) that I came up with in just a few moments – 

• Puddings – make a homemade lemon delicious pudding that much more lemony with ground dried lemons, or use ground dried citrus to spark up creamy rice puddings
• Melt dried lime and/or lemon with butter to pour over fish or chicken
• Add to honey and olive oil for an intense salad dressing
• Add an extra zing by adding it to any of your fruit smoothies
• Toast some nuts and toss them with salt and ground citrus to add an extra flavour dimension
• Sprinkle dried limes on tacos
• Add dried limes, lemon or orange (or a combo of all three) to a creamy sauce  for pork or chicken
• Add dried lemon to iced tea, then decorate with the dried slices
• Add to soups when cooking, or – even better – freshen soups and stews with a light dusting of ground dried citrus before serving

This product is amazing – dried limes, lemons and oranges are incredibly delicious and amazingly versatile, they’re an easy way to add wonderful flavours to all of your cooking, they make the most of the premium citrus that we grow right here in South Australia, and make wonderful gifts.

Oh – and they’re just one more excuse to visit the Mount Pleasant Farmer’s Market – open tomorrow, and every Saturday morning.

 So grab a bag of these dried citrus and try out my Lime Cake recipe – made in no time in the food processor, this recipe is deliciously simple.

Do you want more citrus recipes? Try my Italian Poached Oranges.

 

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