You could absolutly substitute it for Yuzu or Calamasi. I do not think you could substitute it with Kaffir lime but neither would I call Yuzu or Calamasi a good substitute for Kaffir. To get an idea of what the flavor profile is like.
I would love to see what a cross between the bifoliate Kaffir and the Trifolitate Flying dragon would result with.
I do need to visit sometime but its hard to justify a 3.5 hour drive. Maybe I can make an excuse for a 1.25 trip when my brother-in-law has his Yale graduation.
Google tells me the Kaffir Lime is only hardy to zone 8, and I sit here in zone 6. The trifoliate orange might be something worthwhile. My inner cynic tells me that with the hundreds of thousands of Filipinos living in the northeast that at least one of them would have discovered how well trifoliate orange works as a calamansi substitute by now.
You will have no problem growing Trifoliate āflying dragonā in zone 5 but citrus from seed can take 20 years to fruit better get plants. But when you do get around grafting your seedlings you will need true flying dragon for root stock with out doubt.
Store-bought calamansi juice is not cheap, and itās not fresh. The best Iāve had was the frozen stuff. So lemon juice is the substitute here. Iām not the Filipino, my wife is, but I like it just as much as she does. And the kids like it.
The last two times weāve gone to the Philippines, Iāve bought several kilos of calamansi and canned it there to bring home. Last time I brought 4 pints of freshly squeezed calamansi home and we used it all up within I think 4 months.
@Joe my mother-in-law from Trinidad confirmed how similar diluted Flying Dragon was to the orange they call mandarin that is not like the mandarins we are familer with. My wife described Calamansi from the Asian market as just like that other orange they have in Trinidad.
I canāt say diluted FD would hold up to the taste buds of people with calamansi flowing though there veins but I wonder.
I have not grown it from seed. A quick Google says flying dragon can fruit from seed in 3 years. Other citrus are known to 10 years to fruit 20 was an over statement.
As for production this is my neighbors tree in Washington DC where these seeds came from. That tree is loaded every year, survived two recent polar vortexes like they where nothing.
This is really hard @mamuang is the better expert here. Kaffir lime is the signature citrus in Thai, Laos, Cambodian cuisine. Yuzu and relations is a signature of Japan and the Philippines has Calmansi. Outside there native cuisines they are really hard to use.
The dish the comes most to mind when I think Kaffir is Lemongrass soup if done correctly will contain Lemongrass, kaffir lime leaves, kaffir lime skin and kaffir lime juice so shouldnāt it really be called kaffir soup?
The other way I know it use Kaffir would be to flavor the oil your going to use to fry something. So take some small shrimp and marinate them with fish sause, kaffir lime juice, and lemongrass. In the hot oil you add lemon grass and kaffir lime leaves and chile peppers. drain the shrimpās and dredge them in tapioca flour and deep fry. toss with sugar more Chile and lime juice right out the oil and still hot.
Outside its native cuisine I think the best way to enjoy would be a panna cotta
I was at a friendās place in Winston-Salem (zone 7) recently, and his totally unprotected (although in a somewhat sheltered spot) citrumelo was large and covered in dozens, maybe over a hundred large fruit. My own citrumelo hasnāt fruited yet, but it has survived several years in my relatively colder but still zone 7 location with only minimal dieback in the coldest wniters. I brought back a couple fruits from my friendās tree. They were very grapefruit-like but not enough that I could see eating them straight like a grapefruit or drinking the juice straight like grapefruit juice. Iām not sure what Iād do with them if I had a bunch. I think Iād rather use trifoliate juice for a lemon juice substitute, but the citrumelos were so much bigger with so much more juice, probably at least 10 times as much juice as a trifoliate fruit.
I havenāt really noticed any bitterness in my trifoliate fruit, maybe in my flying dragon fruit which is so much smaller that I wouldnāt want to use it anyway ā if itās not bitterness thereās something nasty going on with the Flying Dragons ā but I like the fruit much better of the seedling trifoliate I grew from seed from a tree I found in the woods that I think must have survived from an old living fence. Itās definitely very sour, and I think it took me about 9-10 fruits to get just 1/4 cup of juice, and it definitely has the sticky resins, but I donāt taste any strong off flavors and neither has anyone else in my family or any of the at least half dozen other random people Iāve had taste it. Flying dragon is a neat ornamental, but I canāt imagine why anyone used it for cross breeding purposes when it seems like there are much bigger and better trifoliates. I assume Flying Dragon is not any more cold hardy than other trifoliates. The largest Flying Dragon fruit I had this year was only 1-1/2" in diameter and the smallest was barely 1". The fruit from my seedling trifoliate is much bigger by comparison. The photo is of what was probably the largest fruit from my seedling tree. My seedling came into production fairly young, by the way, maybe 3-5 years from seed. I planted it as a very small seedling in 2011, and I canāt remember how long itās been fruiting.
I am in metro Atlanta. I have an ichang in a container for the past 2 years to be planted out in the spring. No leaf drop, no fruit damage. Also, larger fruit seem better able to handle frost. Larger volume probably means more material to maintain temperatures.
No expert at all. I am just lucky to have one of my sisters and one of my sister-in-laws who are excellent cooks.
Kaffir lime (in Thai, we call it Ma-grood). For a culinary purpose, only leaves and rind is used, not the juice (very unlike limes or lemons). Kaffir lime rind is one of key ingredients of many kinds of curry paste in Thai cuisine.
However, juice, rind and leaves are used for medicinal purposes.
Growing up, we used magrood juice as hair cleanser. It is supposed to keep your hair clean, healthy and shiny. After you shampoo your hair and rinse it off, wet your hair thoroughly with magrood juice. Wait 10 minutes before rinsing it off. Your hair will be clean and shiny. Magrood juice is supposed to clean off chemicals you put on your hair and restore your hairās quality.
