Strong and Sour: Calamansi Lemons

Check out these tiny little lemons! Don't be fooled by their sweet appearance, though. These diminutive citrus fruits are packing a seriously sour punch.

I spotted these particular calamansi lemons at the Mountain View Farmers Market south of San Francisco. At first, I thought they were mandarin oranges or perhaps kumquats. They have the same shape and look as mandarin oranges, but with the coloring and thin skin of a kumquat.

It turns out that I wasn't that far off base. Calamansi citrus are actually a very old cross between mandarin oranges and kumquats. The fruit is grown throughout Southeast Asia, primarily in the Philippines and Malaysia, but cultivation has gradually spread to other warm growing regions - like California! The growers at my farmers market called them lemons, but you might also find them referred to as Calamansi limes, Chinese oranges, kalamansi, golden limes, or even Panama oranges.

Calamansi is one of those ingredients that makes Filipino and Malaysian dishes taste truly authentic. The flavor is something like a sour orange or a slightly sweeter lime, and it has a fragrance to match. It gets added to sambals and laksas, squeezed over freshly-steamed fish, or even sipped on its own as a refreshing drink.

If you get your hands on some calamansi, try out these recipes:

• Calamansi Juice from Rasa Malaysia
• Candied Calamansi Limes from Use Real Butter
• Grilled Tilapia with Calamansi and Fish Sauce from Jun-Blog

Do you know and love calamansi citrus? How do you use it?

(Images: Emma Christensen)

Comments (5)

They're also called Calamondin Oranges - I work at Franklin Park Conservatory in where we have several calamondin trees. The fruits are really delicious fresh - but you have to eat the skin with the flesh! The flesh is super sour, but the skin is sweet. We let our summer camp kids sample calamondins - they make the funniest faces and many of them ask for seconds!

I don't have any recipes, but I am growing a few calamondin seedlings at home, they are beautiful trees!

Yeah my wife is Filipino and we get these quite often for her to cook with. Use it with soy sauce for fish and makes a good replacement for lime when having a Carona or San Mig.

Thanks for saying they're also called Calamondins! When I was visiting Paris last spring, every corner flower market was selling potted house/balcony plants. Potted citrus seem to be very popular across continental Europe.

My mom always used them to make juice, mix with soy sauce to dip fried fish in and to squeeze over pancit.

My grandmother had a calamansi bush that she would use for a taste of home whenever she made Filipino food. It is the citrus of choice to mix with soy sauce for dipping. It has a sweet flavor, kind of like a cross between a tangerine and lemon, so in cocktails, it needs a little bit of a bitter note to even it out. Cranberry, calamansi vodka are a perfect quaff.