I bought these in a shop in London last year, knowing that I’d find a use for them and they’ve sat in my cupboard ever since. They’re strange things, light as a feather but rock hard, a bit like table tennis balls, but with a delightfully pungent lime aroma.
I found a recipe in Silk Road Cooking to use them. This could be a MoFo entry in itself because I’ve had the book for many years and not made anything from it. It looks nice and is a great read and I’m looking forward to using it more often. The recipe I chose was Elam Kidney Bean and Lime Braise, which uses dried beans, leeks and lots of fresh herbs along with the limes. I was making it midweek after work so I used tinned beans and tweaked the cooking times and added water to suit.
This really was delicious – the earthy beans work so well with the zingy limes and the herbs are braised until their flavours really come out. I served it with a geographically challenged couscous because we’ve eaten a lot of rice recently, but plain rice would work equally well.
(You don’t eat the limes but I included it in the photo so you can see what it looks like).
Have you used dried limes? What did you make?
Cooking the Vegan Books 