A couple of weeks ago, I picked up a box of Tahitian limes at the markets – at $7 for nearly 60 limes, they were just too much of a bargain to pass up!
They were in great condition too – green and unblemished. Of course, I promptly forgot all about them, so by the time I opened the box a week later they were looking a little sad – softer and yellower, and in need of using up in a hurry. That wasn’t a bad thing, as they were also riper and juicier, and better suited to pickling.
I’ve turned them into two large jars of lime preserves – on the left are traditional Moroccan style preserved limes, made by salting the quartered fruit and squishing them into a sterile jar with a few bay leaves, cinnamon sticks and cloves. On the right is a sweet lime pickle, spiced with brown sugar, turmeric and salt. Both recipes are from Stephanie Alexander’s cookbook, and I haven’t tried either before. I’ll let you know how they go!
Edit: As a couple of people have asked for this, here is the preserved lemons recipe I used. It comes from The Cook’s Companion by Stephanie Alexander.
- 250g coarse kitchen salt (I used sea salt)
- 10 lemons, scrubbed and quartered (I used 18 limes)
- 1 bay leaf
- 2 – 3 cloves
- 1 stick cinnamon
- extra lemon (lime) juice
1. Scatter a spoonful of salt into a 1 litre sterilised jar. Tip the lemons into a large plastic tub with remaining salt and mix well, massaging the fruit vigorously.
2. Pack the fruit curved-side out into the jar, adding bits of bay leaf, clovers and pieces of cinnamon as you go.
3. Press down hard on the fruit to extract as much juice as possible, then scrape in any leftover salt from the tub. Cover with extra lemon juice if required. (Stephanie points out that a wedge of lemon left exposed might develop a white mould, which she says is harmless. That was enough to make me squeeze extra limes to ensure there was enough juice to cover it all!)
4. Wipe the rim and neck of the jar with a clean cloth dipped in boiling water and seal with an acid proof lid. Let the lemons mature for at least 1 month in a cool place (not the fridge) before using.
Note: I haven’t tried this particular recipe before, but preserved lemons I’ve made in the past have occasionally fizzed a little during the first week. Apparently that can happen as part of the preserving process – just loosen the lid occasionally to let the gas out.
Update: Here’s how they turned out!
Fig Jam and Lime Cordial 
I have been wanting to do this for so long!
Yours are beautiful!
I have the recipe for the traditional salted lemons/limes, but have never seen the sweet lime pickle before. I am intrigued.
I’m looking forward to further reports on these preserves.
( AND I’m going to make this THIS year!)
Heidi, will do! I have no idea how the sweet pickle will work and I’m a bit hesitant – there’s barely any salt in it at all, so I’m a bit worried it will go off. I’ve been following the instructions, which say to put it in the sun for an hour every other day for three weeks. We’ll see I guess.
I absolutely love preserved lemons (never tried making them with limes but was thinking about it a few weeks ago). We used to have a fantastic lemon tree and always had huge jars of preserved lemons in the house, which we used liberally in all sorts of things. Then sadly the lemon tree died and our supplies dwindled. We started using them more sparingly, and now alas they are all gone. I should go to the markets and hunt out a big box to make some more….or find someone with a tree in their backyard. The problem I have found with commercially bought fruit is that sometimes they have been sprayed or coated with wax and other stuff and that makes the preserve go off.
Did margeritas and other such lovely lime based drinks not feature at all?! How about a lime-beena? Hmm? :)
No limebeena, no margueritas – I am of the opinion that no-one actually drinks tequila; some people just keep it down for longer than others. :)
I did give the fruit a good scrub in hot water before starting – hopefully that helped.
I have a lime tree and when they are plentiful I squeeze a heap to put in ice cube tray, then when frozen they go in plastic bags in freezer, so much handier than slicing a lime for a drink and then wasting much of the rest. Confession time…today sneaked a kaffir lime off a neighbours tree (she doesn’t know what they are for) for a curry paste, my kaffir lime grows good leaves but the limes fall off when immature. You have to work with what you can. Roz
Roz, I was actually inspired by all the Morocco travel tales on your blog! I freeze a lot of lime and lemon juice too – and put it into plastic ice-cube bags! Then it’s just a case of popping them out as we need them. Must admit I’ve never use kaffir lime, only ever the leaf. Do you use the juice, or just the rind? I won’t dob you in to the neighbour.. :)
I’ve been wanting to try preserves for a while. These sound good. Request from the peanut gallery…. Can you do a recipe for something to use them in next? ; )
Dan, will do, although I usually just chop them up and sprinkle them over things. They’re very nice with tagines.
I’ll edit the post to put the Stephanie Alexander recipe up.
I preserve lemons all the time – I’m too tight to pay the small fortune that they cost in the shops!! We love them and I put them in lots of my food.
Amanda, they do cost a fortune, don’t they? And they’re rarely “cooked” enough for me – I was told you had to wait until the white pith in rind goes translucent…
You are so adventurous Celia! They look full of promise, hope they turn out well! Must do some more pickling soon, but we are in the ‘hungry gap’ here at the moment between the end of the winter foods and the new ones coming in and lemons and limes are rarely that cheap either….. We love lime pickle though mm. What do you do with the preserved lemons? Make lamb tagine? xx
Jo, I just tend to scatter them over the top of dishes, a bit like a gremolata. It’s best to rinse the limes or lemons before you use them to remove the excess salt, and you also only use the rind, not the flesh.
[…] Bakes Thought I’d better join in the pickle posts! Celia has been pickling lemons and limes here which look […]
Wow, when limes are cheap they are so cheap and when they’re expensive, they’re so expensive. Can’t wait tto see how it turns out!
Hi Celia, I learn from an article in this week’s Good Living section that food preservation was very popular in the 1950s. Today, it seems to be a dying art.
Looking forward to further updates on these babies!
Wow these look amazing… Lots of folks have lime trees in Texas and I will file this away for next year’s crop!!! After a few mixed drinks most people don’t know what to do with the rest and they waste away on the tree. Preserve them, of course!!! Wish I would have done that a month ago…also the thought of my own preserved lemons is super appealing!
They look really good Celia. I wish I could find limes that cheaply here, but it’s never going to happen for imported fruit.
celia, it’s like you’re reading my mind. i was just looking at david lebovitz’s recipe for couscous with preserved lemons, and thought it’s something i have to look up. i have never tasted them. it’s not something you’ll come across in romanian cuisine. would you tell me what they taste like? what’s their texture when they’re pickled? i mean the salted ones, those are used in the recipe i have my eyes on. and i know you have limes in there, but if you look at the jars they really do look more like lemons. i was gifted about 2 kilos a few weeks back, had no ideea what to do with them, so i turned them into minted lemonade. predictible, but very refreshing.
Lorraine, you’re so right! Offseason, they can be dollars each!
Wink, I think jam making is still alive and well, but I do agree that a lot of the other stuff – pickling, preserving fruits in syrup etc – is dying out. I wonder if it’s because fresh produce is now so readily available year round. Plus we have such easy access to tinned fruit out of season.
Nancy, the salted ones end up very salty, so I’m quite keen to see how the sweet ones go this year. I’m cautiously optimistic! :)
C, both these recipes should work equally well for lemons, which is what they were written for!
Dana, you only eat the rind of the salted lemons and limes, and only once they’ve had enough time for the pith in the rind to go translucent. They have a texture a bit similar to glace fruit, but obviously not sweet. Very lemony and salty, a great accent to lots of dishes, and I sometimes chop them up and add them to sour cream to dollop on meat stews and tagines.
Celia, these are GORGEOUS! I want a jar right now. Or really, I want a tagine with some of these in it. I’m thinking fava beans and lamb chunks. Could you whip that up? I’ll be right over.
Hmmm….now don’t I have a cookbook that shows me how to make tagines step by step? ;-)
Wow. My sweetie has been wanting to try Moroccan preserved lemons. What a timely recipe post!
Have been wanting to make preserved lemons for at least two years now and still haven’t managed it. Yours look really good, of course and I bet the limes taste good too. Am very envious of your markets where you keep finding cheap boxes of limes, strawberries and various other goodies.
Choclette, we’re very blessed to have access to our markets. But I assumed most cities had something similar? Though you might need to get up very early in the morning.. :)
Reading through the recipe for the preserved lemons as posted here, I thought it looked a little short on salt.
I checked “The Cook’s Companion” and Stephanie’s recipe has 250g salt in it.
Hope this helps avoid fermenting disasters in others’ kitchens.
The jars you put up look great, BTW!
Thank you so much – typo on my part! All fixed now.