Red Desert Lime - Bush Tucker Comes to Town

Submitted from More World Recipes

Red, green and orange, desert limes are a rare delight for the senses. Learn how to grow your own and discover a range of ready made preserves that will introduce you to bush tucker foods.

Early on an overcast morning at the local growers market, I stopped to talk with Craig, our local nurseryman, at his stall. Hiding at the back of the other plants was a delicately weeping tree with slender, dark green glossy leaves, covered in a profusion of pink and white buds. It was a Red Centre lime, a cultivar created by CSIRO, gourmet bush tucker for my garden.

Australia has three well known native limes.
Finger Lime - citrus australasia is dark coloured with clear round juice sacs inside that resemble caviar.
Round Lime - citrus australis also known as 'dooja', has a lighter green fruit and is native to South East Queensland.
They are both capable of growing to a height of ten metres and their fruits ripen in the sub tropical winter.
Desert Lime - citrus glauca or the Australian Outback Lime is common in more arid areas and ripens around Christmas time.

My new tree was one of three desert limes made available in Western Australia by http://www.dustyroad.com.au and will grow to about two metres.

Red Centre (the variety I have) is a cross between finger lime and mandarin. With blood red skin, dark red flesh and pink juice, it closely resembles a little blood orange.

Australian Sunrise is a cross between calamondine (itself a mandarin crossed with a cumquat) and a finger lime and is pear shaped and orange coloured.

Rainforest Pearl is a pink variety.

These new varieties are tolerant to light frosts, providing they are grown in well drained soils. They are recorded as growing as far south as Melbourne and far north as a sheltered courtyard in Switzerland!

Because of their size (they were previously known as micro citrus), they are perfectly suited to growing in tubs and respond well to a light pruning and a little organic manure.
My little darling has gone into a wine barrel filled with good quality potting mix and some cow manure and mulched with river stones to trap some heat during our long cool winters.

Cooking with Desert Limes

The sharp acidic taste of the desert lime is interchangeable in recipes with other citrus, especially lemon and lime. They compliment and enhance seafood, salsa, dipping sauces, beverages, preserves and dipping sauces. Their beautiful colours make them excellent garnishes and Sunrise can be eaten whole, skin and all, for those of you who enjoy the cumquat experience.

Surprisingly, they freeze well. Just place the ripe fruits in freezer bags and exclude as much air as possible. Most commercial crops are sold frozen. These are a hardy, water wise crop for farmers to consider. Producers last year were selling frozen limes for $24 a kilogram at farm gate.

I haven't been able to find fresh limes in WA as yet but Outback Spirit http://www.outbackspirit.com.au make a good sauce of garlic, wild lime and chilli that is available in supermarkets. It is excellent served with a cheeseboard or mixed into yoghurt as a side dish. They also make a wild lime seafood salt, wild lime pickle and sunset lime marmalade as well as a fabulous dressing that is perfect with seafood.

I can't wait for my little tree to produce; it now has its first fruit set a month after beginning to flower. You'll have to find your own, I won't be sharing!

Thanks to Nirala at THe World Recipe Book . Com