Pickles, Sambols and Preserves
Lime Pickle (Dehi Achcharu)
Whole limes cured in salt and chilli until the skin softens and the bitterness turns useful.
- Cured slowly in salt, not shortcut with vinegar
- Skin goes soft and translucent, as it should
- Sour, salty and hot at the same time
- Cuts through a very rich curry
- Keeps for a long time, being salt and acid
Available to pre-orderSKU: CC-PIK-LIM
Size: 200g
- Carefully packed and shipped to your door
- 14-day replacement on damaged items
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Description
Sri Lankan lime pickle, made by curing whole limes in salt until the skin goes soft and translucent, then working in chilli, mustard and a little sugar. Intensely sour, salty and hot all at once, and one of the few things that can cut through a very rich curry.
Lime pickle is a patience dish. The fruit sits in salt for weeks while the skin breaks down, the bitterness mellows and the whole thing turns from a hard green lime into something soft, dark and complicated.
There is no way to speed that up. Every quick lime pickle recipe produces something bitter and raw, because the curing is not a step you can shortcut with heat or vinegar.
Use it in very small amounts. This is the strongest jar on the shelf and a quarter teaspoon on the side of a plate is doing plenty of work.
How to Use
- A quarter teaspoon beside a rich meat curry
- Chopped small through a plain rice
- With curd and rice for a sharp contrast
- Alongside oily fried fish
Cook with It
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Frequently Asked
The salt has to break down the skin, and nothing else will do it. Over a few weeks the peel softens, goes translucent and loses its raw bitterness. Rush it with vinegar or heat and you end up with harsh, bitter lime in a jar.
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