About two years ago I planted one of the CSIRO's Australian Red Centre Lime trees in a half wine barrel. I thought I was getting an Australian Finger Lime, the ones where the centre of the fruit comes out like caviar. I thought that would be marvellous with fresh oysters, sprinkled on mini lemon tarts or in cocktails. Well, it turns out my lime, and the one I thought I was planting, are completely different plants! Oops.
This year the Red Centre lime had a bumper crop as you can see below:
The fruit is tangy and tasty, but it would take a lot of work and a very small juicer to squeeze enough for an evening of margaritas! I am keen to try some of the fruit thinly sliced and placed on top of white fish fillets, then baked in the oven. But for now, I had a small bucket of fruit to use.
What to do with them? Well, an idea came to me at the weekend, while we were sausage-making with our Italian neighbours and shared an amazing lunch of home-grown and home-made delicacies and heard stories of life in Italy and what it was like coming to Australia on the boat. The conversation turned to grappa and what it was good for. My husband suggested the only thing it was good for was cleaning drains. But our hosts said they pickled kumquats in grappa and sugar. The Red Centre lime is about the same size as a kumquat and it got me thinking. What about lime-infused tequila, or vodka? (...or grappa for those who are brave enough)
So I put my rain jacket on this morning and while the beagles snuffled for dog biscuits I'd scattered over the paving, I picked the limes. After washing and slicing them open, I put them in boiled jars, topped some up with tequila, some with vodka and one lucky one with grappa and sugar. The I added these super-cute 'jar bonnets' that my friend gave me and there you go, pickled limes, ready to taste in 6 weeks:
I'm not sure what I'm most excited about... a glass of the lime-tequila on ice, or trying a lime-vodka martini? Of course, the limes won't be wasted... I think I'll still use them on fish or maybe in a dessert. I'll let you know how it works out. Maybe I will still find room to plant an Australian finger lime to add to my lime tree collection?
