Cool food find

Can you guess what these are? Kaffir lime leaves! These dark glossy leaves – from a South East Asian citrus tree – carry serious lime flavour. The leaves can be found at specialty stores or Asian grocery stores. They're sold dried and fresh. Even if you don't think you'll use them right away, don't hestitate on buying the fresh ones – they keep well stored in a resealable plastic bag, in the freezer for up to 6 months. The dried ones, of course, keep for quite a while too. Store them in a resealable plastic bag in the cupboard for up to 6 months. How to use: They're often cooked with like bay leaves are – added to a dish while it's cooking to lend flavour then fished out before serving. I use them in Thai curries and lemon desserts. Try adding them to this super easy Thai green curried chicken recipe – it's one of my favourites. Add a couple of leaves along with or in place of lime juice. Scoop them out before serving. http://food.chatelaine.com/Recipes/View/Curried_chicken_with_roasted_cashews Or try it in a lemon dessert. The trick is to add a couple of leaves to a lemon filling that is cooked on the stovetop. Then you can remove the leaves before baking the filling or if the dessert is ready at the point simply pluck them out just before serving. Two examples of this type of dessert are: lemon meringue pie (filling) or a lemon curd. Here is a lemon meringue pie recipe that I think really benefits from the addition of kaffir lime leaves: http://food.chatelaine.com/Recipes/View/Lemon_meringue_pie Here's my step-by-step video for this pie: http://en.chatelaine.com/english/video/food/article.jsp?content=20090205_104049_24504 Add the leaves along with the lemon juice and pluck them out before pouring the filling into the pie shell. Happy cooking or baking!