One day I caught a Bayless posting about a really simple way to make a relish with red onions and lime. Since I purchase small bags of Limes at Costco, and since I tend to use a lot of Onions, there are times when the Limes are aging and need to be used. Though they do hold up for at least 3 weeks if they were reasonably fresh when purchased (see the note below about the technique I use).
It’s a simple list. Here’s what you need:
- 2-3 large Red Onions, cleaned and sliced (I cut them parallel to the veins)
- 8-10 or more Limes, juiced (technique below)
- Boiling water
- Vessel to store product in the refrigerator
Set a good-sized boiler of water on the stove while you slice up the onions. I’ve tried both orientations (cross-vein and longitudinal). The longitudinal cuts are a bit prettier, made by quartering the onion and then cutting along the face, parallel to the central axis (through root and tip).
Once the water comes to a boil, submerge the onions in the pot. You could do this in a bowl, using the water kettle, but I like to reserve the option to add a bit more heat if I want the onions to be more tender. Anyhow, leave the onions in the water for about 10 minutes, until you see the color is beginnig to fade and run a bit (the cells are starting to break down). You want the onions to retain some crispness, so don’t “cook” them. Drain the onions and move them to a wide-mouth container with a lid.
Juice the limes, generating enough liquid so the onions are all submerged. I use a double-cupped hand squeezer, but find this is much more successful if I cut the tip and the stalk base off when I’m halving them. Slicing away those two protuberances smooths out the shape so the convex cup really acts to compress the bulk of the lime half. This makes the process a bit easier and I believe it extracts the most juice.
Seal and refrigerate. These are great on their own, amazingly tasty when mixed half and half with Sauerkraut, and a wonderful base for the Grouper Ceviche I’ve concocted.
Link to the Page: https://botanyincontext.com/rick-bayless-limed-red-onion-relish/
Note on storing Limes and Lemons: I find that these citrus do not need to be regrigerated, and should not be left out on the counter. I keep two large glass-topped canisters (not a tight-sealing kind, rather the ones people used to use to sell cookies and candies in small shops) for this. I clean them well, once in a while doing a bit of a diluted Clorox rinse so I’m not passing any putrifying fungi off from one batch to the next. But I find the large cannisters will hold a small bag of limes, and most of a bag of lemons. They are not simply charming to have around; the citrus keep incredibly well with this modest climate control. It keeps them from loosing too much moisture, but also seems to avoid rot problems when the fruit are sealed in a bag.