Lemons and Limes: The Topic

[alanamoana]

the heavy for its size test is pretty good, so i'll second that. but i find with limes, more so than with lemons, that if you give them a small squeeze, they should be a bit tender. the harder the lime, the drier the interior.

this is all cocktail research isn't it?

[ghostrider]

it may seem obvious, but the rule of thumb i give my cooking students is that "heavy for its size is a good indicator of freshness."  produce is mostly water weight, and as the produce sits around, in the warehouse or on the shelf, moisture evaporates through the skin. we have a natural "scale" in our heads, that tells us how heavy that artichoke or lemon will feel when we pick it up. if it feels heavier than we expect, chances are good that it is fairly fresh. if it feels a lot lighter than expected, it has probably been sitting around too long.  that's my method, anyhoo...

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It's called "density," of course, and I think you've articulated the concept extremely well.

[Smithy]

We have a "citrus" tree in our home but the fruit is very confusing - it starts off green, turns yellow then turns orange and the fruit is very bitter.  It is beautiful to look at and this year I invested in a Meyer lemon tree so hopefully my citrus woes will be over.

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That's a really interesting tree you have. Do you know what kind of orange it is? For instance - is it a Seville (a.k.a. "bitter") orange?

Meyer lemons are great. If I ever get back to someplace that I can have a thriving tree outside, I hope to do a "fruit salad" tree like my dad did for his dad. He grafted several citrus onto the same tree, so that Papa had a tree with tangerines, lemons, grapefruit and oranges on it. He might even have had valencia and navel oranges together...I've forgotten for sure.

[snowangel]

What's the neatest and cleanest way to wedge a lemon or lime and avoid as much of that white gunk that runs the length of the lemon? (Oh, and remove as many seed as possible so the kids aren't choking on them as well as the fish bones.)

[sanrensho]

I always cut into wedges, chop off the center (white) part, and flick out the seeds with a knife or other utensil.

I do this with naval orange wedges too (not the seed part), as it makes the wedges easier to eat.

Edited September 10, 2008 by sanrensho (log)

[Lilija]

I've always just done it the same way I do for drinks, cut the knobs off of each end, cut in half lengthwise, then each half lengthwise into quarters. Most of the seeds fall out, that way, and the stubborn ones are easy to flick out with the knife tip.

For drinks, after I quarter the halves, I cut each wedge in half again, it makes a nice little piece. Perfect for Corona bottles.

[heidih]

Your post got me wondering, so I went and experimented. The winner for me was first cutting the lemon in half lengthwise. Then slicing the first wedge avoiding the white center stingy thing. Then rotating and continuing to make wedges so I was left with a little core of the white thing and nice wedges that were "all lemon". Shockingly my test lemons had only one seed between them and that was flicked out as others have said with the knife tip. Do you have fresh lake fish on the menu? Hope to see the fish and lemon wedges on the dinner thread.

[sanrensho]

If I had to do a large volume, I suppose I would cut the lemons in half, then make angled cuts to remove the tough center part. Then slice into wedges and flick out any seeds.

[TheSwede]

The cooking school way is to trim off both ends first, then removing the peel and pith by making curved cuts along the lenght of the fruit. Then you take the cleaned fruit in the palm of one hand hand and make slices on both sides of each membrane with the other hand. That way you get nice clean citrus "supremes".

A really sharp filleting knife is a good tool.

[Anna N]

The cooking school way is to trim off both ends first, then removing the peel and pith by making curved cuts along the lenght of the fruit. Then you take the cleaned fruit in the palm of one hand hand and make slices on both sides of each membrane with the other hand. That way you get nice clean citrus "supremes".

A really sharp filleting knife is a good tool.

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This is a great method for making supremes but I think when you want to serve a wedge of lemon as accompaniment for fish then that bit of peel is necessary to provide a "clean" hold and to act as a sort of press for the juice.

[TheSwede]

Oh, you are right. I misunderstood the question.

[Lisa Shock]

You could also look into getting lemon wedge covers, something I recall from seafood restaurants in my childhood. They are like tiny hairnets for lemon wedges. HERE is a link to a commercial supplier.

[Sararwelch]

Most of the limes I've bought recently have been seedless. Alternatively, you could cut the lemon into thin slices for a nice presentation.

[Gabriel Lewis]

I don't like seeds or white pith either. I leave the knobby ends on, as I find they give purchase to the wedges for squeezing. I cut them in half lengthwise, and then cut a triangular prism out of the lemon so to speak, removing the center rib of pith and most the the seeds from each half. If there are any seeds left they're usually pretty easy to scrape out. This is the best method i've come up with; if you make a clean cut with a sharp knife then you don't really use much lemon, and you end up with 8 seedlesss/pithless wedges.

[SylviaLovegren]

There's a little Pakistani grocery in my neighborhood -- they always have really good fruits and vegetables, often things you don't see in the supermarket. Today they had these big, lumpy lemons. When I asked what exactly they were, they shrugged. "Lemons that kind of taste like limes" and "lemons where you eat some of the peel, too" was all they could come up with.

I bought one. The peel has a bergamot-ish smell, but the flesh is pretty much bright lemon flavor with maybe a hint of lime, and a little sweeter than a standard lemon, but not much. I chewed some of the peel but wasn't real fond of it, had a very herbal flavor and was thick and crunchy, not thin and tender like a kumquat. The fruit is less green and more yellow than my fuzzy iphone photos.

One fruit is the size of a very large but not monstrous lemon. Any idea what this is?

[FrogPrincesse]

It looks like a kaffir lime to me.

[SylviaLovegren]

It looks like a kaffir lime to me.

It does sound like it, especially the herbal/piney notes, which I noticed in the rind. But wiki describes kaffir limes as quite small and this thing is big -- are their large kaffir limes?

[MikeHartnett]

How big, exactly?

[TheStarvingArtist]

Those look like Calamondin/Kalamansi to me!

[SylviaLovegren]

How big, exactly?

This one is about 4.5" long.

[Jaymes]

I have a kaffir lime tree. The limes do have a bumpy skin just like in the photo and they grow to about a 2-3" diameter, about the size of a tennis ball.

I also have a couple of calamondin/calamansi trees. They don't really look anything like this photo. They are much smaller than the poster is describing, their skin is smooth and, when ripe, they're a bright orange.

I can't say for sure that I know what this fruit is but I'd guess it is a kaffir lime, although mine don't get up to 4", so I don't know.

I am positive, though, that it's not calamansi.

Is it possible that it could be ugli fruit?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ugli_fruit

Edited October 23, 2013 by Jaymes (log)

[Plantes Vertes]

I have a kaffir lime tree. The limes do have a bumpy skin just like in the photo and they grow to about a 2-3" diameter, about the size of a tennis ball.

I also have a couple of calamondin/calamansi trees. They don't really look anything like this photo. They are much smaller than the poster is describing, their skin is smooth and, when ripe, they're a bright orange.

I can't say for sure that I know what this fruit is but I'd guess it is a kaffir lime, although mine don't get up to 4", so I don't know.

I am positive, though, that it's not calamansi.

Is it possible that it could be ugli fruit?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ugli_fruit

Ugli fruit are grapefruit-shaped rather than lemon-shaped, and pinky-orange in colour, therefore I put my vote with the kaffir lime.

[HungryC]

Calamansi are smooth skinned and very little (like key lime sized). If it's not a kaffir lime, it might be a variety of citron; those have bumpy skin and a bit of a knob on one end, and they can grow very large.

[huiray]

Do the folks in the store call it "BIJORA"? See here, here, here. Are any of the leaves available? Were there any around when you picked this up? (The leaf shape & size would help in the ID)

One picture here seems to suggest that there can be pretty big kaffir limes (the one of a stack of limes besides that glass). The citron pages at that website are here.

I picked up knobbly "limes" not so long ago at my Chinese grocery - sold in the "limes" bin. I still have a few. They look somewhat like yours and are also about the same size; except that there is a more noticeable sort-of linear ridging to the bumps such as seen in the pages for citron linked to above. The juice of the ones I have tastes somewhere between a "standard" Western-type lemon and an almost-smooth-skinned lime.

[andiesenji]

It looks like one of the newer varieties of citron - that have been hybridized to produce more "fruit" and less fibrous interior structures.

The middle eastern market had them last year at this time.

The rind is extremely aromatic, the pulp is somewhat bitter.

They range in size from about 4 inches long to 7 inches long and are more oval than the ancestral citron or etrog which has a "boxy" shape tapering at each end.

I cut a few of the ones I bought and salted them just like preserved lemons - excellent result but took 60 days.

The remainder I used only the peel and candied it.

Edited October 23, 2013 by andiesenji (log)