The Humble Citrus

At the outset, I must admit that I am not a fruity person but I am trying to change this image of mine :-) Although there are very few fruits that I really enjoy, I do love to start my day with a glass of juice - the favourites being Orange and Apple. The choice of fruits and fruit-juices that are available throughout the year in the UK and most of the western part of the world is mind-boggling. But there is one citrus that I missed in UK, one that is widely available in India. I have decided to dedicate this post to this humble fruit. Any guesses which fruit I am talking about? Have a look at picture below:

This citrus looks like a big lime but the flavour leans towards orange only milder and sweeter and is called Sweet Lime or Mosambi in Marathi. The fruit is also called Palestine Sweet Lime and is only popular in India and parts of Middle East.

This is how it looks on the inside:

I love the refreshing sweetness of this fruit and it is an ideal choice if you do not enjoy the bitter taste of oranges and limes. Most of the local fast-food joints and fruit stalls have this fruit juice on its menu. I think this fruit juice must be most popular in India and is widely available. On our last grocery shopping trip, my hubby picked up a few of these (he does the fruit shopping as he enjoys fruits more than me). My citrus juicer that I had bought in UK before our India move was lying unused. By the way, this buy was inspired by my frequent viewing of the Barefoot Contessa cookery program on the UK Good Food channel. I am an admirer of Ina Garten's kitchen and love the way she effortlessly juices citrus fruits using her juicer.

So I decided to give my juicer a try and my initial attempt was yielded very little juice. So I asked my hubby to give me a hand and he did a better job. Here is the citrus juicer in action:

We managed to extract about 200 ml of juice from three large sweet limes. This is just about right for one glass of juice.

How to prepare Sweet Lime/Mosambi Juice

To make a tall glass of this juice: Extract juice from 3-4 Sweet Limes and topup with water. I used about a third of water. Add couple of teaspoons of sugar if you prefer even sweeter juice. I also added a teaspoon of Ginger juice extracted from fresh Ginger root. Ginger added a nice sharp twist to the sweet mellowness of the Sweet Lime. 

You could also try a combination of Orange and Sweet Lime juice to get naturally sweetened Orange Juice as the sweetness of Sweet Lime will balance the tangy flavour of Orange.