Lime Leaves

Most citrus leaves are edible. In fact, they are downright addictive. Particularly when steeped and added to a martini.

(However, that's not this article.)

Somebody smart at my local farmers' market figured out that they could market lime leaves. As many of you might know, winter is the time for citrus fruits. Ergo lime leaves.

While they are not a perfect substitute for kaffir lime leaves in Thai cooking, they work perfectly excellently in the soups. Most importantly, they work really well as substitutes for curry leaves in Indian cooking particularly when you slice them into pieces. They are hardier so they will not be edible and you will have to fish them out but they lend exactly the correct aroma.

Your rasams and your chitraanam can now be "locavore".

The CC is just thrilled.

Sri Lankan Fish Patties (Malu Paan)

One of the great things about "fusion" cooking is how seamless it can actually be.

Canned tuna is not exactly the most exotic of ingredients. It's quite boring and bourgeois and very middle-American. We're just going to use Sri Lankan magic to amp it up a few notches.

There's nothing new about Sri Lankan spices either. They're all there in India but it's the combinations that are new and as the CC has pointed out endlessly, this is just a combinatorial game.

You're most likely to encounter this stuff as "fish cutlets" — the mixture is deep-fried. However, a little dig underneath the surface and you see it also as "fish patties" and "fish rolls" and "fish balls".

There's also the ubiquitous malu paan which is the same fish filling inside a bread that is baked.

For the record, the paan is from the Portuguese pão and is the same as the Japanese パン (pan), the Filipino pandesal (bread with salt), and the Indian paav (a much more accurate transcription of pão.) The Portuguese spread the cult of yeasty bread baking all along South-East Asia.

What matters, of course, is the filling at the center of these concepts.

All the CC has done is to take the patties and stick them in a burger bun (which is vastly simpler) and achieves the same purpose.

Dinner is served.

Ingredients

1 tsp cumin seeds
1 tsp coriander seeds
1/2 tsp fennel seeds

1 tsp black pepper

1 sprig curry leaves
1 piece of fresh turmeric (or 1 tsp ground turmeric)
1" ginger
4-5 green chilis

2 large potatoes
1 can tuna

1 medium-sized onion (diced finely)

cilantro (finely chopped)
1 lime

salt (to taste)

Note 1: The combination of cumin, coriander, and fennel in the ratio 2:2:1 along with ground turmeric is often used in Sri Lankan cooking particularly in dishes involving fish. It gives it that characteristic "Sri Lankan" taste.

Note 2: While this mixture is freely available in Sri Lanka pre-made, the CC assumes that the majority of the audience will not have access to this. Also, if you're going to add black pepper to the final mix, you might as well grind it all together.

Note 3: Fresh turmeric adds a complexity that ground turmeric simply doesn't. The CC vastly prefers the former but feel free to use the later.

Recipe

Grind the spices to a fine powder.

Grind the ginger, green chilis, and turmeric to a paste. (If you grind the spices in a mortar and pestle, you can do this in the same step.)

Boil the potatoes in water until tender. Peel and mash gently.

Heat some oil in a pan. Add the diced onions and curry leaves and fry for a bit until the onions have softened. Add the spices and ground paste and fry till the raw smell has dissipated. Roughly 2 minutes.

Add the tuna from the can and break it up. Let it cook for 4-5 minutes. Add the boiled potatoes and mix it all well together.

(If you are going to deep-fry into "fish balls", make it drier than normal. Otherwise it should be wet enough to form into patties.)

Dump the whole stuff into a bowl. Let it cool for a bit. Pick out the curry leaves and discard. (They don't do this in Sri Lanka but then the leaves there are more tender than the ones found here.)

Add the chopped cilantro and the juice of one lime and crush gently using a potato masher. Mix and check for salt.

To make the patties, you can just either pan-fry them with some oil (which is the way the CC prefers) or for a fancier richer taste, do the same after an egg-wash and coated with breadcrumbs.

Green Peppercorn Pickles

The CC is not the sentimental type and he's certainly not the rhapsodising type but if there ever were something to send him into a Proustian "madeleine" moment, it would be these pickles.

What are they?

Fresh green peppercorns that have been pickled with just salt and lime.

A good friend of the CC's used to eat them with yogurt-rice. He couldn't cook if his life depended on it (still can't!) so these were "a lifeline for kitchen failures and the lovelorn". Bit of a harsh judgment on the CC's part.

Back to the peppercorns.

Only going to work with fresh peppercorns which are hard to find. Ideally, you would use just salt but you need lime to get the pH of the liquid down to the right level. The lime does not participate in the final product as a taste since the canning process neutralizes it.

If you're going to make truly great steak au poivre or the classic Thai green fish curry with green peppercorns (พริกไทยอ่อน), these be the peppercorns that you want to use. In a wondrous world, you'd have fresh peppercorns all year around but it's not a wondrous world. We can just make it a little more wondrous with food technology.

Ingredients

(based on your canning jar size)

500 grams green peppercorns
8 tbsp sea salt
4 limes (juiced and passed through a sieve)

water

Note: Canning jars come with a sealant. The sealant is activated when inverted in boiling water.

Recipe

Wash the peppercorns really carefully. Set aside.

Bring water to a boil. Dump the bottle inside and fish it out. You are just sterilizing the bottle. In this bottle, drop the peppercorns, the salt and the lime juice. Add enough cold fresh water to top off the jar.

Add the sealing mechanism and seal carefully. Gently put the bottle upside-down in the boiling water. Bring to a boil and let it boil for about 5-6 minutes.

Fish it out and let it sit.

Takes about 2-3 weeks to pickle. Once you open the bottle, you must keep it in the fridge. Use a clean fork/spoon to fish out the pickles. Add more salt and water to cover them when you do so.

Tom Yum

This is hands down one of the absolute favorites of the CC's in the Thai repertoire. It was requested so frequently by the CC's friends once that it was practically a standby as appetizer before "other" meals.

It also happens to be extraordinarily easy provided you have the right ingredients.

At its heart, it involves the simmering of extraordinarily fresh ingredients and then topping with some protein and aromatics.

Once again, it's a meta-recipe where you can have tom yum goong (shrimp) or tom yum gai (chicken) or tom yum talay (mixed seafood.)

David Thompson's recipe is ultra-minimalist and ultra-purist and it would work if the CC lived in a tropical climate and had access to the very best of produce in large quantities. It also eliminates shallots which is fine for royal cuisine but that's not what you're getting on the street.

Not having access to that quality of produce perenially, the CC's version is closer to that of Kasma Loha-Unchit's which tweaks the parameters to get the same taste profile.

The soup is an exercise in freshness. Simmer it at the last moment. Ideally, the boiling hot soup should be poured over the fresh meat/seafood and served at once. They will cook in the boiling broth and be both perfectly cooked and tender at the same time.

The CC once had a the sister of a friend who refused to eat barely cooked shrimp until we persuaded her to try it. Then she wanted seconds and thirds (of which alas, there were none!) A convert to the excellence of barely cooked seafood.

The existence of this soup on menus across the country may be a cliché but there's a solid reason it is one. It's a masterpiece of flavor.

Ingredients

3 cups water

1 small block tamarind

3-5 kaffir lime leaves
3 pieces lemongrass (sliced at a diagonal, pounded lightly)
1" galangal (sliced, pounded lightly)
3-4 Thai chillies (or to taste)
1 tbsp nahm prik pao (roasted chili paste/jam)

2 shallots (sliced lengthwise into thin slivers)
1 small tomato (sliced into quarters)
1/2 cup straw mushrooms

fish sauce (to taste)

chicken/shrimp/seafood

1-2 limes
cilantro leaves

Note 1: It's best to use water rather than broth. You get a very sharp clear taste profile. Broth muddies the waters so to speak. Think of it as the difference between limpid watercolors and an oil painting.

Note 2: The fresher the chicken/shrimp/seafood and also the aromatics, the more this soup will shine.

Note 3: The chicken should be sliced thinly against the bias. The shrimp can be left whole. The seafood should also be sliced finely.

Note 4: Since the galangal, lemongrass and kaffir lime leaves are not eaten, technically you could strain it. That's not the Thai way and yet the CC has seen it done in a superb "fancy" Thai restaurant in Manila.

Note 5: Scallions are fairly traditional too but the CC doesn't like the clash between the shallots, scallions and cilantro. He likes the sharper watercolor flavors.

Note 6: There are excellent brands of nahm prik pao on the market. No artificial ingredients, etc. You could be a purist and make it but the CC finds that these are not just acceptable but positively excellent.

Note 7: The CC would like to draw your attention to a powerful concept. The idea of a background "mellow" sourness (tamarind) allied with a perfumed "fresh" sourness (lime). You will see this idea as a conceptual framework all along Southeast Asia whether it's kudampuli + lime (South India) or dried raw mango (aamchur) + lime (North India) or tamarind/vinegar/raw mango + calamansi (Philippines.) You'll see it Italy too (vinegar + lemon). It's an extraordinarily potent idea.

Recipe

Smash the galangal and lemongrass lightly. Add them, the chillies and kaffir lime leaves to the water.

In a separate bowl, pour hot water over tamarind and let it soak for 20 minutes. Strain through a fine sieve into the same bowl of liquid. Discard the remnants.

Bring the liquid to a boil. When it is boiling, turn the heat down to a low simmer. Add the nahm prik pao and let it simmer for 10 minutes. Add fish sauce and check to taste. It should be aromatic, spicy and salty (and a little tart and sweet from the tamarind.)

Add the shallots, tomatoes, and mushrooms. Bring to a boil again for 2 minutes.

Turn off the heat. Squeeze the lime juice into it.

Pour over the chicken/seafood in individual bowls. Top with the cilantro leaves.

Serve at once with jasmine rice.

Ikan Kuning (Fish stew with Lime, Turmeric and Basil)

The CC bought some amazing black bass from the local fisherman and was going to make the afore-mentioned steamed fish with fermented black beans, ginger and scallion except that the CC hates repetition and is easily bored.

This is a wondrous dish from southern Indonesia. You see the Indian influences right off the bat (turmeric) and the Southeast-Asian influences (galangal, kaffir lime leaves, basil, etc.) The New World shows up as chilis, of course.

Ideally this dish is cooked with a whole fish or fish segments with bones but let's get real. Just make it with a fillet. It's not the same and it does matter but not substantially so.

Pair it with the most basic rice you can make because the flavors in the dish are already overwhelming.

Ingredients

black sea-bass
4 tbsp lime juice
tamarind

2 shallots (chopped coarsely)
2 cloves garlic
1 red chili
1/2" ginger (chopped coarsely)
1/2" galangal (chopped coarsely)
1 fresh turmeric (chopped coarsely)

lemongrass (sliced diagonally)
1" pandanus leaf
4 kaffir lime leaves

peanut oil
salt

2 cups water

lemon basil (or Thai basil or Italian basil)

Recipe

Note 1: Once you combine the lime juice with the fish, the clock is ticking. Do it after you make the paste, and right before you start cooking.

Make the tamarind water. Pour boiling water over the tamarind and let it steep for 20 minutes. Pass the mixture through a sieve keeping the water and discarding the residue.

Pound the shallots, garlic, chili, ginger, galangal, and turmeric to a paste. Set aside.

Combine the fish gently with the lime juice and tamarind water set aside. Let it sit for 10 minutes.

Heat up some peanut oil till it shimmers. Add the paste, lemongrass, pandanus, kaffir lime leaves and let it fry till the raw smell disappears. Add the water and bring to a boil. Let it cook for 5 minutes.

Add the fish and the lime juice and tamarind water. Let it cook through. This is swift. No more than a few minutes.

Top with the basil and serve at once.

Life's Ceviche, and Then You Die!

The empire of raw fish eating encompasses many realms but the basic idea is very clear. The freshness of the fish is paramount.

Even in older times, people were intuitively aware of the need to "sterilize" the surface of the flesh. They may not have not known about bacteria and clean workspaces but they had empirically figured out that the surfaces of the fish get contaminated quickly in a hot climate.

The solution was a quick bath of the fish in an acidic medium — lime, lemon or calamansi juice, various vinegars, etc.

Different cultures produced variants that lie along a spectrum —  sashimi and sushi (Japanese), kinilaw (Filipino) and ceviche (South America and then transmitted further via the Spanish Empire.)

They range between raw and "cooked" via acid. There's also some form in pickling in the mix.

Sashimi for all its vaunted "heritage" is only possible thanks to modern-day fish processing. It's only modern freezers that allow fish to be consumed safely.

Sushi is an older idea where fish were placed with vinegared rice and allowed to partially ferment to develop intense umami flavors. This older style of sushi is seldom found any more. In fact, even slightly recent forms of sushi (Edo-sushi) are rarely found today. The modern-style involves raw fish placed over mildly vinegared rice. (A full treatment of all the sushi styles would take up a book not a blog post!)

Ceviche is widely known these days. Raw fish is mixed with lime juice, spices, peppers, cilantro and sometimes all kinds of incongruous ingredients (avocado?) — this idea from South America spread across the globe with the Spanish Empire. The idea is that the intense acid "cooks" the muscles of the fish. It's easy to prepare to keeps easy with modern refrigeration. No wonder it's a hit at restaurants since it can be made ahead of time.

Kinilaw (or kilawin sometimes) is an ancient style of  Filipino cooking. Even though it's tempting to assume that the idea came with the Spanish Empire, the evidence overwhelmingly suggests it was an original ancient indigenous idea that the Spaniards encountered and recognized as being analogous to something they already knew.

In fact, for an ancient idea, kinilaw comes closest to the modern-day ideal of sashimi. The fish are bathed in an intensely acidic broth but they are consumed right away within seconds. Kinilaw connoisseurs can feel the toughening of the fish fibers as the minutes tick away.

It's served with rice. Rice is everywhere in the Philippines even for breakfast! The CC's passion for food has limits. More rice? Again?!? SIGH.

There are also added vegetables — radishes are classic but the CC bets that halved summer cherry tomatoes would be killer too from the umami. There is also lato but you can't find that outside the Philippines. SIGH.

As would the dried anchovies known as dilis in the Philippines although the idea of pairing dried and fresh fish would be looked upon as total heresy. The same idea with dried fish is a "separate" dish. SIGH.

A word about calamansi — these intensely flavored citrus limes the size of a small marble are unique. If you can't find them, the next best bet are the yuzu you find in the Japanese markets. If you can't find those, use a mixture of orange and lime juice but you will not reproduce the intensity and uniqueness of calamansi.

Kilawin is also made with cooked pork and goat. It's a pretty general idea and the general etymological difference between kilawin and kinilaw seems to be whether it's cooked meat or fresh fish. (This is a bit unresearched and sorta folksy, and the CC might be wrong.)

Given the sashimi nature of the dish, if you want great kinilaw, you must make it yourself. There is no other choice. At the CC's farmers' market, there is a local fisherman supplying two kinds of sashimi-grade seafood — tuna and scallops. Hence, the CC makes tuna and scallop kinilaw since that is what is possible outside of the absurdly magnificent "wet markets" of the Philippines.

Ingredients

1 shallot (diced fine)
1" ginger (cut into fine slivers)
2 garlic cloves (diced fine)
2 Thai bird-eye chillies (diced into very thin rounds — add more for spice)

1/2 cup coconut vinegar
6-8 calamansi (squeezed fresh)

salt (read below)
fresh black pepper

2 red radishes (cut into thin half-moons)

1/2 lb sashimi-grade tuna (diced)
6 scallops (cut into 4 half-moons each)

Recipe

Mix all the ingredients except the fish together. Taste. It should have an intensely sour taste but it should also be "rounded". This is hard to explain but easy to taste. You typically won't need salt but you might need a pinch. It should sit together for at least 30 minutes for the flavors to "blend".

Store the mixture and the diced fish in the fridge separately. Mix right before serving.

Tick tock, tick tock, tick tock. The clock is ticking. Eat right away if you want magic.

Sprouted Lentils

The CC is a total sucker for sprouted lentils.

What you get in the supermarkets sucks but the process of sprouting lentils is shockingly easy.

Even in the dead of this frozen winter, the CC has had no problems getting them to sprout. The reason is that sprouting is an exothermic process which means that the sprouts themselves are giving up both heat and moisture.

You soak the sprouts overnight at first; then put them in a cheese cloth in a transparent bowl and cover with plastic wrap. Put in a warm spot that gets some indirect light. Each day you must wash them to make sure that they stay moist and remove any possible fungal buildup. They will sprout like champs in two days. Wed. night soaking for Sat. breakfast (Thu. for Sun.)

Easy peasy.

The following is a great breakfast dish as nutritious as it is simple.

Ingredients

3 cups sprouted lentils
pinch of asafetida
1 tbsp. dhanajeeru (coriander and cumin roasted and powdered)
1 tsp. red chili powder

oil
salt (to taste)

1 lime (cut into quarters)

Recipe

Fry some oil in a pan. Toss in the asafoetida and fry for a bit. Toss in the dhanajeeru and the red chilli powder and the sprouts. Sautée for 2-3 minutes.

Add water (about 1 1/2 cup.) Let it simmer on low heat until the beans are edible. You may need to add more water.

It's done when the beans are cooked and the liquid is still a little watery but not soupy.

Serve at once squeezing the lime on top. The CC loves sopping up the broth with a crusty baguette.

Caldo de camarónes secos (Dried Shrimp Soup)

One of the great achievements of traditional food technology is drying various fish and meat products. This calls for a longer post which the CC promises but a highlight is "dried shrimp".

It may not be immediately obvious but shrimp come in a variety of sizes from the size of your smallest fingernail to the size of your palm. The various cookbooks frequently call Mexican dried shrimp as the "best" but the CC has found zero evidence for this culinary chauvinism. Your best bet is the Chinese markets where these babies are literally dirt cheap. A few dollars keeps the CC truckin' for a whole year. Just keep them in the fridge if you buy them packaged. (The CC buys from the bins mostly.) It's the humidity that spoils them. They are already "dried". In a fridge, they will last a year or two. In a freezer, they will last five years or more!

This recipe originally started in Mexico as a "bar recipe" whose goal is to keep you on target and "keep on truckin'". It's also insanely delicious and very nutritious so it's jumped the fence and become a regular home recipe for kids.

Yes, kids, it's so delicious that a "bar recipe" served for free with beer and booze has become a "kids' recipe". Such is the wonder of life.

The "keep on truckin'" portion comes from the absurd umami that is embedded in this recipe. You want more, more, more. The hangover recovery part comes from the fact that it is very high in protein and it's a very light broth. So you are getting rehydrated and getting a solid boost of nutrients while you are it.

The two dried peppers that go into it are not spicy at all. They have this intense complex smoky flavor which is unmistakable. Substitutions are not going to work. The tomato and the shrimp do all the heavy lifting of the umami with the synergistic effect.

The CC has a friend who hates shrimp and yet when the CC served him this he claimed that this was the best thing the CC had ever fed him. Seriously, dude?!?

And so it goes with things that you don't know about!

Ingredients

Salsa Roja

2 guajillo peppers
1 ancho pepper
3 small tomatoes
1 small onion
2 cloves garlic (unpeeled)

1 tsp cumin seeds

olive oil (or lard)

Caldo

1 cup dried shrimp

1 small onion
6 cloves garlic (peeled)

6 cups water

1 tbsp. epazote

sea salt

Serving

2 tbsp. chopped cilantro
1 lime

Recipe

First make the salsa roja. Heat a dry skillet (comal). When hot, put the peppers on it and dry roast them till they are fragrant but not burnt. Remove. Open them up when cool and remove the seeds and the veins. Don't stress. We are going to purée these babies.

Add the unpeeled garlic and the onion to the dry skillet till they are brown in spots. Put the garlic in some aluminum foil and let it sit for a bit. Peel the skin off when they are cool.

Roast the cumin seeds.

If using fresh tomatoes, put on top of the skillet and dry roast till they are burnt in places and soft. Peel the skin. If using canned tomatoes (like the CC is right now in winter), skip this step.

Add everything for the salsa to the blender and blend to a very fine sauce. Pass through a fine sieve and set aside.

Heat the lard (or olive oil) in a pan. When shimmering and very hot, add the salsa and fry. Be careful. This has a tendency to give off a lot of splatter but this step is absolutely crucial to the taste. Stop when the salsa has cooked and no longer has a raw smell. Set aside.

In a separate pot, cook the dried shrimp, onion, garlic, and epazote with the water for about 20 minutes at a low simmer. The time depends on the size of the shrimp. No less than 15 and no more than 30.

There will be a lot of nasty froth that comes to the surface. Skim, baby, skim.

Blend the mixture really fine. An immersion blender works great here. Pass the mixture through a very fine sieve retaining the liquid and tossing the solids.

Combine the two liquids and bring to a rolling boil. The idea here is to emulsify whatever fat there is left in both liquids. It is a bar food after all but it's a tiny amount. Most of it has been skimmed away and if you wish, you can skim away more by heating a lower speed which will cause the fat and the broth to separate.

Serve hot with a topping of cilantro and a big squeeze of lime. The lime is non-negotiable. It's what brings the tangy soup to life at the last moment with that "hit me!" taste.

Sopa de Lima

This is a superb one-pot meal. It's from the Yucatán region and resembles the classic tortilla soup except that it has different spices and the strong tang of limas - similar to but not the same as the easily available Persian limes.

The classical dish calls for both gizzards and liver so this is definitely a "simplified" version.

Ingredients

Tortilla Chips

6 corn tortillas
1 cup "neutral" oil (corn or rice)

Sopa

1 1/2 cup chopped white onion
4 cloves garlic (minced)
1 habañero chile (minced)
2 tbsp oil

1/2 tbsp ground cloves
1/4 tbsp ground cinnamon
1 tbsp dried Mexican oregano

6 cups chicken stock

1 cup canned crushed tomatoes

1 1/2 lbs chicken thighs (with the bone)

1/2 cup lime juice
2 avocados (chopped)
cilantro (chopped with stems)

Recipe

The tortillas are for making chips. You can also buy these ready-made if you have access to good ones. If not, you must dry out the tortillas overnight, cut them up and fry them in the oil till crisp. Drain on paper towels.

Heat up the 2 tbsp of oil. Fry the onions until translucent about 5 minutes. Add the garlic, habañero, cloves and cinnamon and fry for a few more minutes.

Add the peeled chopped tomatoes, the stock, oregano and chicken. Bring to a simmer and reduce the heat to a low simmer. Cover and cook for about 75 minutes till the chicken is cooked through.

(Just to point out that most recipe writers are bollocky bitches and bastards, most suggest a 20-minute simmer. It took more than 60 minutes to get the thighs to be tender, and there was nothing remotely special about the CC's chicken.)

Pull out the chicken using a pair of tongs. Shred it with a fork and toss the bones away. Add it back to the pot. Add salt to taste and some of the lime shells. Cook for 10 more minutes. Fish the lime shells out.

Add the lime juice just before serving.

Serve garnished with the fried tortilla chips, chopped avocados and cilantro.

Souring Agents

One of the most important tricks in the chef's repertoire is the deployment of sour tastes.

It's extraordinarily underused and the CC doesn't understand why.

In fact, the CC will argue that this idea is so important and so undeveloped that it should be better known. (The CC will probably regret this when he gets old. Perhaps you shouldn't give away all of your best ideas?)

The dynamic use of sour ingredients is the lynchpin in nailing the entirely desirable "wanna-eat-more" feeling.


It's not unknown — it's common to Indian street food, and Japanese cooking. It's well known to both Moroccan food, and Thai cuisine. It's actually the key idea that distinguishes Filipino food with its "hit-me-again" taste.

Why is so underutilized then? The CC stays mystified.

Humans are conditioned to eat slightly acidic foods. In fact, from an evolutionary perspective, substances that contain alkaline substances naturally (e.g. alkaloids) tend, on a general basis, to be highly poisonous. That's why soap tastes "bad". It's an evolutionary response to ensure avoidance of dangerous things.

(On a side note, that's why sweet tastes good instinctively to babies. It's an evolutionary response to fruits which are safe for consumption.)


Most chefs will tell you that they use two tricks. One is surface salt which the CC has talked about here extensively.

The other is the use of sour ingredients which "brighten" the flavor, and bring into sharp relief the other flavors that are being used.

Try it. You'll thank the CC later.

Roasted Brussel Sprouts with Spicy Sriracha

If you love spicy stuff, you'll go crazy over this.

This is the whole package -- nutritious, easy to make, spicy, umami-laden, complex, addictive.

(Source: here, and here.)

Ingredients

2 lbs brussels sprouts (halved)
oil

4 tbsp fish sauce
2 tbsp water
2 tbsp sriracha sauce
3 cloves garlic (crushed)
2 limes (juiced)
1 tbsp brown sugar
2 tbsp vinegar
1/2 cup mint (chopped)

Recipe

Toss the brussel sprouts, with oil, and salt and roast at 400°F for about 20-25 minutes until lightly browned. If you remember, this is Maestro Maillard in action.

Meanwhile, mix together the rest of the dressing. Toss with the sprounts and serve over rice.

Lemons, Limes, Oranges

Why is this picture here?

Because it's cool, and because we all need a touch of surrealism in our life!

Culinary Disasters (a clarification for posterity)

The CC in one fell swoop will raise the quality of your Indian cooking to a new level.

In an Indian cookbook, when they say lemon, they actually mean lime.

The CC would know.

This is a linguistic disaster turned into the Hindenburg of culinary disasters!