Dried Black Limes

In 1994 I wrote a book, From Pantry to Table (Aris Press, Houghton Mifflin), 414 pages describing ways to keep an interesting pantry, what to keep in it, what to buy, what to make, an recipes as well as not-recipes (ie descriptions) of what to do and how to do it, with the less than usual ingredients. My pantry shelves had truly become the precursor to my green polkadot bag: all the go-to ingredients I cherished.

Pretty sure the book was the first of the From ______to Table titles; I thought it was so original at the time! (and I think it was, for then). Anyhow, it went on to be nominated for a James Beard Award.

Even though some of the ingredients (and recipes) have gone out of style, food being as much a fashion as clothing and design, some are still just right. And some have already gone out of style, and then come right back in!

To: this is to say: I still use this book, and sometimes I laugh at the sun-dried tomato wave going through it, or the lack of some of my beloved ingredients and dishes from the last several decades, at other times I think: Oh, yes! And dive into its pages.

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So here are the dried limes I put into my last post’s barley and yogurt soup. So tangy! So fragrant!

They are used throughout areas of the Middle East, Northern India, Iran, and Oman. I have found particularly lovely recipes using dried limes in an old Oman cookbook; one of these days I’ll pull out from its shelf and we can cook together.

These limes are dried in the hot MidEast or Persian gulf sun until they turn hard and feel very light, weightwise (all of their juice and moisture has evaporated so they are, in fact, lighter). The flavour is intensely sour, yet not juicily so; they also have an earthy, slightly bitter note to their taste. Sometimes I combine dried lime for an undercurrent of deep fragrance and finish a dish with a squirt of fresh lime or lemon juice, for a tangy freshness—good in a clearish tomato broth, esp with chunks of fish in it.

The first time I tasted the lime’s uniqueness, it felt like a breeze coming off the Bay: it was so refreshing. In fact, I was literally sitting next to the San Francisco Bay in Belvadere, Marin Country; gathered with my brother, Bryan, my then sister in law, Shahlah, and the whole extended Persian family. Each week they invited myself and my daughter Leah to come along with my brother. We were like one big happy family with our weekly sunday supper, great pots of khoresh and chelo, kebabs and crisp crisp tah dig, the crackling bottom of the rice pan. For awhile, I was an understudy with Naima, the family’s mother, who cooked like an angel and had a kind kind heart, a heart that loved cooking and teaching me their traditional tastes, to take them into my own kitchen. I gobbled the lessons up.

And they were all good, the koresh, or stew of meats, legumes, herbs, ladled over the rice; but one dish was so memorable, I’ve never been able to forget it. Koresht e gheimeh: a thick mixture of lamb shreds and yellow lentils cooked down into an utterly delicious sludge, each bite scent with dried lime/lemon.

Alas, my brother and sister in law divorced so that was the end of my my kitchen apprenticeship in Persian cooking, and an end to my brother’s happiness. Our kitchen lessons come through happiness but also tears.

To use dried limes: pierce holes in each one and pop into a bot of simmering soup or stew or sauce; you may also soak a whole lime, then finely chop it and add it towards the end of cooking, for a more intense hit of its unique flavour.

There are actually two kinds, the yellow/beige ones and these, the black ones. They are usually labelled dried limes, or alternatively: omani limes, noomi basra, limoo amani, or loomi; sometimes they may even be lemons instead of limes, even if they are called limes on the labelling. Also they may be sold ground into a powder: lime powder. I haven’t been that happy with powder vs the whole, but perhaps I do not yet know how to use it to get the best from it; clearly I have things to make, soups and sauces to simmer, before I make my definitive decision. I find the whole dried limes keep their fragrance and flavour for a long long time, both on the shelf (maybe forever?), and in the pot, whereas the lime powder is a bit more blatant in fragrance, but then loses it to a tiredness.

The yellow dried lime has a thicker, tougher skin, and needs to be cooked longer. The first dried limes/lemons I brought into my kitchen were a gift from Chef Hoss Zare, who paid a visit to our test kitchen when I was at the S.F. Chronicle. When he was describing the dishes from his Persian homeland that use the dried limes/lemons, as he was filling a bag of the treasures for me to take home, he paused, then said: “Of course, you can just steap them for a refreshing tea!”.

Dried limes are used throughout areas of the Middle East, Northern India, and Iran. I have found particularly lovely recipes using dried limes in an old Oman cookbook, which I’ll pull out and we can cook together, one of these days.

These are the whole dried black limes.

And these are the cut up dried limes—so you can see their insides—with my hand holding a whole one, for size.

What amazes me though is that there are so many dishes that are NOT Middle Eastern, etc that appreciate the unique flavour and perfume of dried lime: such as last postings barley and yogurt soup.

I used to purchase dried limes and lemons when I found myself in a Middle Eastern or Persian shop; but with the pandemic came my love for online food ordering: I now order them from Sous Chef UK; if you are in the USA, google to see whats closest to you. In London, if you prefer to go in person, I believe that Persepolis in Peckham sells them; and I’ve seen online that Waitrose does too, though I don’t know which branch etc.