Lime is a more powerful flavour than lemon: tangier, cleaner, a perfect pick-me-up. The fruit come mostly from Asia and Mexico; use lime and, like it or not, you will take on overtones of the cuisines from those places. It marries well with fresh ginger root, with chilli and with fresh coriander.

Lime juice is mostly famous in drinks: mojito (rum, brown sugar, mint, lime), Moscow mule (vodka, ginger beer, lime), margarita (tequila, triple sec, salt, lime). In India you will find nimbu pani - lime juice diluted with water - everywhere and offered “salt or sweet”.

To extract the most juice, give limes a short burst in the microwave first, or soak in a warm water for 30 minutes.

Guacamole cries out to be made with lime - tangy and cool yet still substantial. My easy version is to mash ripe avocado with lime juice, olive oil, soy and Tabasco, though purists would argue that it should be chopped as a salad, along with red onion, fresh chilli, coriander leaves and lime.

A Mexican summer classic that deserves to be made more often, is ceviche; “cook” (marinate) cubes of the freshest raw white fish fillet in lime juice for two hours and stir in diced ripe tomatoes, olive oil, slivers of garlic, finely chopped chilli and coriander leaves at the end. It may sound scary but it's deliciously unfishy in flavour, with none of the slipperiness of raw fish.

To cooked food: lime and chilli butter (butter pounded with a pestle and mortar to incorporate finely chopped chilli and lime juice) will be delicious melted equally over grilled chicken or steak. For a Thai-flavoured salsa to liven up the plainest of grilled fish, pound garlic, salt and chopped green chillies (seeds discarded), thin with lime juice and (nam pla) fish sauce and stir in a little sugar and fresh coriander leaves. Or simply squeeze lime juice into a clear chicken broth, add Tabasco, soy and coriander leaves.

Times Recommends

• Seville orange and almond cake
• Gordon Ramsay’s aubergine bhajis
• How to make the perfect Thai green curry