Dry-salted - India, Pakistan and North Africa

Dry-salted lime pickle

Name: Dry-salted lime pickle
Cuisine: India, Pakistan and North Africa

The most completely documented recipe in the bulletin: raw materials, processing, a flow diagram and a storage note. Four kilograms of limes to one of salt is a quarter of the fruit's weight in salt, which is why it keeps and why it is eaten a teaspoon at a time.

8 steps, every one quoted from FAO Bulletin 134 6.1.1. The step labels are this site's; the sentences under them are not.

The ratio, as the source wrote it

1 kg per 4 kg of limes

One kilogram of salt is added for every four kilograms of limes.

FAO Bulletin 134 6.1.1

Left as a ratio rather than converted to a percentage, and not scaled into a table. It multiplies straight up or down, but the sentence carrying the figure often carries a condition with it, and separating the two is how a number arrives here looking more certain than its source made it.

Every number the source states

Salt: 1 kg per 4 kg of limes
Fermentation time: one to four weeks
Time for the brine to form: about 24 hours
Placed in the sun: one week

Substrate

Lime

Region

Method

Numbered for your place in the list. Every sentence below is the source's own, verified against the page it came from when this table was last built from the sources.

Select
Only fully ripe limes without bruising or damage should be used.
Wash and cut
All limes need to be washed in potable cold water, drained, and then cut into quarters.
Layer
Limes are placed in a layer, approximately 2.5 cm deep, into the fermenting container (a barrel or keg).
Salt
One kilogram of salt is added for every four kilograms of limes. The salt is sprinkled over the vegetables.
Repeat
Another layer of vegetables is added and more salt added. This is repeated until the container is three quarters full.
Weight it
A cloth is placed above the vegetables and a weight added to compress the vegetables and assist in the formation of a brine. The formation of a brine takes about 24 hours.
Put it in the sun
The container is then placed in the sun for a week.
Judge the end by the bubbles
Fermentation takes between one and four weeks depending on the ambient temperature. Fermentation is complete when no more bubbles appear.

The source's own flow diagram

Five of these recipes are printed in the bulletin with a process diagram beside the prose. It is lifted whole here, cells and all, because it is the closest thing the source has to a written recipe and it sometimes carries a detail the prose leaves out.

Stage	Note
Selection	Only ripe limes should be selected
Wash	In clean water
Cut	Cut into four pieces or slice the skin
Mix with salt	1kg salt for 4kg of limes
Ferment	Leave the container in the sun for a week to ferment
Package	-

What else the source says

On the spices: Spices should be of good quality and free of mould.
Storage: Lime pickles keep well if stored in a cool place. Due to the high acid level of the final product, the risk of food poisoning is low (Fellows, 1997).

Before you make this

This site is a reference and not a food safety authority. It reports what named sources published and does not certify that any preparation is safe. The safety page sets out what the sources themselves say about acidity, about surface growth and about when to throw something away, and equipment lists the instruments the numbers above cannot be checked without.

The full record for this pickle, including every source consulted and the ones that disagree, is on its tradition page.

Other dry-salted recipes

Method and asides from FAO 134 Battcock, M. and Azam-Ali, S. (1998) Fermented fruits and vegetables: A global perspective. FAO Agricultural Services Bulletin No. 134. Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, Rome. Numbers from the same source, extracted separately and listed on methodology.