Exotic lime 'vinegar'

If you have a lemon or lime tree, you'll be picking golden globes from your lawn for a couple of weeks longer. What do you do with them all? I have both kinds of tree, and I've always turned my citrus glut into Moroccan-style pickled lemons (or limes).

But a few months ago I read that in Oman they make a "vinegar" by adding salt to lime juice, sealing the jar and leaving it outdoors for a couple of weeks. I think it was Oman, anyway -- they grow a lot of limes there -- but somehow I can't find the reference anymore. Anyway, three weeks ago I filled a quart jar with lime juice and added half a cup of salt. It's been sitting in my kitchen since.

The result is rather exotic. It smells like a cross between pickled lemons and that old cocktail ingredient Rose's Lime Juice, without the pine-like aromas of the first and the strange artificiality of the second. 

So far I've tried splashing some on potato salad -- it turned that homey old standard into something mysteriously Asian. I've made a vinaigrette sauce with it; very successful, though I found you need to up the proportion of lime to oil to 3:4 to get the full flavor. (By the same token, mayonnaise is a bust, because the usual proportion of 1 tablespoon to 3/4 cup of oil completely drowns the lime vinegar aroma.)

It wouldn't work as a substitute for lime juice in most cocktails because of the detectable salt flavor, but as soon as I get a chance, I'm going to sprinkle some into tequila. I'll call it the Pickled Margarita.

-- Charles Perry

Photo by Charles Perry

Comments

[White On Rice Couple]

Whole, pickled limes are fantastic too! We have a stash of at least 3 jar fulls of pickled limes for a Vietnamese salted lime beverage called Chanh Mui. It's a great ,refreshing beverage, especially when you add some soju or tequila in it! Your exotic lime vinegar is definitely something we'll have to try so we can add it to our pickled lime collection. Thanks!