Who would care about a piece of squeezed out lemon that, according to you, holds no more importance? If this question comes up in your mind, it is because you are unaware of the benefits you can avail from dried lemons! Yes, dried lemons!! Ever heard of it?? Dried lemons are simply lemons dried in sun or by other methods, and used for domestic as well as commercial purposes. There are different forms of dried lemon available today. Let us get into a bit more detail on that.
Dried lemons are available as a whole in the market today. If you see a small dusky brown ball, just like a ping-pong type ball, with rings of pale stripes around them, there you are! That’s your whole dried lemon! They mostly come in the markets as black lime. Though the name sounds a bit sinister, the effect is just the opposite. It works just like a normal dried lemon in your kitchen. The black dried lemon is produced after drying it for prolonged days out in the sun, until its inner parts turn dusky or black due to dehydration. This can be used in food items as a whole or cut into several pieces.
Another form of dried lemon available is the yellow colored or tanned dried lemon. This is mostly made at home by homemakers, so as to preserve the qualities of lemon and keep them in stock for their special barbecue lambs or chicken or other dishes. These do not require as much drying as the black dried lemons. A simple tip in using these dried lemons – you could even cut a piece and place them in a corner of your kitchen sink to remove odors of fish and other bad odors! They work as good as fresh limes when it comes to the aroma they give out.
Yet another form, which is a bit more difficult to find in the markets, is the powdered dried lemon. The reason behind the difficulty in finding these powders is the fact that these lemons tend to lose their qualities pretty quickly once they are powdered. So don’t feel bad about it!! You can always get the dried lemons in whole from the market and then powder them according to your needs!