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Limes, Pickled

Pickled limes made by brining lime juice with salt, then adding a spice vinegar mixture and sun-drying the rinds.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Ginger and turmeric match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,776 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

Limes, Pickled

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the limes

  1. Cut the limes in half and squeeze out all the juice.

  2. Add 2 oz of salt to the lime juice.

  3. Cover the mixture tightly.

  4. Sprinkle the remaining salt over the lime rinds.

  5. Let the rinds sit for 6 hours.

  6. Dry the rinds in the sun for 3 days or until hard.

Make the pickling liquid

  1. Boil the chilies, green ginger, mustard seed, and turmeric in the vinegar for 20 minutes.

  2. Let the mixture cool.

Pickle and store

  1. Mix the cooled mixture with the lime juice and strain it over the lime rinds in jars.

  2. Cover the jars tightly.

  3. Place the jars in the sun for 3 to 4 days before storing.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Ginger + turmerictop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,776 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  2. Lime + gingertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,621 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  3. Lime + turmerictop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together584 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Mustard + turmerictop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,279 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Lime + mustardtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together392 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Limes
The rinds soften and turn hard and dry in the sun, while the juice supplies the sour flavour.
Coarse sea salt
Salt draws moisture out of the limes and helps preserve them.
Green chilies
Add heat and a sharp, fresh pungency to the pickling liquid.
Green ginger
Adds aromatic warmth and a spicy bite to the vinegar mixture.
Mustard seed
Contributes a pungent, sharp aroma as it steeps in the vinegar.
Vinegar
Acts as the main pickling liquid, adding acidity that preserves the limes.

The step that matters

Drying the lime rinds in the sun. The rinds must become hard and dry before pickling. Drying concentrates flavour and reduces moisture, which helps the rinds keep their texture and resist spoilage in the jar.

Swap the mustard

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (lime, ginger, turmeric, vinegar):

  1. Arrowrootfits about as well
  2. Shallotfits about as well
  3. Mustardthe original
  4. Sweet potatofits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against lime, ginger, turmeric, vinegar. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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