Dry Salted Lime Pickle
Practical Action
Add spices to the fermented limes according to local taste.
Fenugreek seeds, mustard seeds, cumin seeds, dried chillies
and turmeric powder are commonly added to the fermented
limes to make a hot spicy pickle.
Roast the fenugreek and cumin seeds and the dried chilli.
Grind them with the turmeric powder. Heat a few teaspoons of
oil in a pan and cook mustard seeds until they pop. Add the
ground spices and mix with the fermented lime.
Sample recipe
10 fresh limes
1-2 cups salt
1 tsp cumin seeds
1 tbsp mustard seeds
1 tbs. fenugreek seeds
20-25 dried red chillies
1 tsp turmeric powder
Flow diagram
Fruit selection
Wash
Cut
Mix with salt
Ferment
Add spices to taste
Package
Only ripe limes should be used
In clean water
Cut into four pieces or slice the skin
1kg salt for 4kg of limes
Leave the container in the sun for a week to ferment
Dry roast, grind and mix with oil
Packaging and storage
Pack the pickle into glass or plastic bottles or into small plastic pouches which are heat sealed.
The bottles should be sterilised before filling. Oil is sometimes added to the top of the pickle to
help preservation.
Lime pickle keeps well if stored in a cool place. Due to the high acid level of the final product,
the risk of food poisoning is low.
Equipment required
Fermentation bucket – plastic bucket with lid
Thermometer
Weighing scales
Salometer (optional)
Equipment suppliers
Note: This is a selective list of suppliers and does not imply endorsement by Practical Action
Cutting and slicing equipment
A range of manual and powered cutting and slicing machinery is available.
Eastend Engineering Company
173/1 Gopal Lal Thakur Road
Calcutta 700 035
India
Tel: +91 33 2553 6397
Narangs Corporation
P-25 Connaught Place
New Delhi 110001
India
Tel: +91 11 2336 3547
Fax: +91 11 2374 6705
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