The Best Part of the Lime

For most people the juice that comes from the inside of a lime is the part they use. They cut the fruit and squeeze the juice out and throw away the limiest part; the zest.

If you are cooking something that calls for lime, ignore the recipe if it doesn’t call for zest and add it anyway. For the non-cooks out there, the zest is the green thin skin on the rind. To harvest it from the fruit all you need is a microplane which you rub the tiny blades over the outside of the fruit. It is best to do this while the lime is still whole.

Once you have rendered the lime naked, then you can halve it and squeeze it or cut it into wedges for drinks. If you are squeezing the lime in a drink add a tiny pinch of zest. If you are making a soup or dressing add a table spoon of zest.

To make life really easy you can zest a bunch of limes and freeze the zest. Then juice all the limes right away. The zest keeps the lime safe from air so once you have removed it you do need to juice as the lime will not last without the green. But lime juice will keep in the fridge for a very long time. So zest and juice away.