- FoodBook - find out about new food taste and experiences
Kaffir lime
Kaffir lime is a fruit/leaves are used in Southeast Asian cuisine, and its essential oil is used in perfumery.
Its rind and crushed leaves emit an intense citrus fragrance.
C. hystrix leaves are used in Southeast Asian cuisines such as Indonesian, Laotian, Cambodian, and Thai.[citation needed] The leaves are the most frequently used part of the plant, fresh, dried, or frozen. The leaves are widely used in Thai[26][27] (for dishes such as tom yum) and Cambodian cuisine (for the base paste "krueng").[28] The leaves are used in Vietnamese cuisine to add fragrance to chicken dishes and to decrease the pungent odor when steaming snails. Also, in Vietnamese villages that harvest silkworms, the silkworms in the pupa stage are stir fried with the kaffir lime leaves.[29] The leaves are used in Indonesian cuisine (especially Balinese cuisine and Javanese cuisine) for foods such as soto ayam and are used along with Indonesian bay leaf for chicken and fish. They are also found in Malaysian and Burmese cuisines.[30]
The rind (peel) is commonly used in Lao and Thai curry paste, adding an aromatic, astringent flavor.[26] The zest of the fruit, referred to as combava,[citation needed] is used in creole cuisine to impart flavor in infused rums and rougails in Mauritius, Réunion, and Madagascar.[31] In Cambodia, the entire fruit is crystallized/candied for eating.[32]