I'm on another "lime rampage". However, these are not the regular green limes that I absolutely love to cook and experiment with in the kitchen.
A few weeks ago I was minding my own business, doing some grocery shopping.
In my midst I saw a haul of new fruits labelled "organic blood limes".
I'm not one to turn away from such things. Especially if it involves some kind of citrus!
I'd love to paint a picture and tell you I was at some local farmers market. And that it was a sunny winters day. And that a lovely farmer explained what these organic blood limes were.
But alas no.
I was in the middle of a very busy Sydney shopping centre on a Thursday night.
On a whim, I picked up my shiny plastic box and off I went to pay.
A little late night googling and some conflicting internet research later, I found some information about these precious little fruits.
They are hybrid citrus fruit developed by the Australian CSIRO.
It's a cross between an Australian finger lime and the Ellendale mandarin (to further confuse things-this mandarin is also a hybrid fruit-a cross between an orange and a mandarin!).
There's a whole of cross breeding going on here! Phew!
They look like a large unripened, dark olive.
And, you're probably curious about the taste. Blood limes are quite acidic and have a "crisp and clean" taste.
And they smell very mandarin-ey (ok that's not really a word).
My next concern was cooking with them.
I found a recipe for a salsa of sorts but that will have to wait for another blog post. I decided to do what I know best and that was to make a marmalade.
I had visions of making a chunky marmalade-like the ones you make with cumquats. But the skins are not edible on these fruit. It didn't matter in the end.
The marmalade was a success.
It was quite strong in the bitter department but in actually didn't mind that.
Even though it didn't yield much I still managed to enjoy it on some morning toast for breakfast.
Be wary that I took a different approach in preparing the blood lime marmalade.
I sliced them in half and boiled them with the sugar syrup and then proceeded to mash them up using a potato masher. This squeezed all the juicy citrus goodness out, leaving the tough leathery skins behind.
A little unconventional but a time saver.
Blood Lime Marmalade Recipe
Ingredients
- 250 grams blood limes, organic
- 1 cup sugar
- 1 cup water
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
Instructions
- Rinse the blood limes under cold running water, slice in half and set aside.
- Place the sugar, water and vanilla extract in a pot and cook over a medium heat until the sugar has fully disolved. Add the blood limes into the syrup, turn up the heat and bring the mixture to a boil.
- Once you have reached the boiling stage turn your heat down to a simmer and proceed to cook the mixture for approx 40-45 mins. Remove from the heat and using a potato masher squash the limes until all the flesh has been extracted.
- Remove the pips and skins and store the marmalade in a sterilised jar.
- If you don't like any texture in your marmalade you can pass it through a fine sieve before storing it in jars.
Sue Muspratt
I’ve just made this as I have a huge crop of red centre lines on my bush.
The flavour is so different from any other marmalades I’ve made. I do like it thank you.
Without the skins, there’s not a great yield unfortunately. Still a great use for my excess of these. Other than using in water and in making keffir, what else are they good for?
Thanks Sue
Timothy
I have just made a mixed citrus marmalade - skins definitely left on to provide a chunky marmalade
Used kilo of blood limes, kilo of mandarins, kilo of West Indian limes and two navel oranges (all grown in my garden) - yum!
Btw - use sliced blood limes in G n T with kaffir lime leaves (crushed) and sliced orange.