Spicy Lime In Jaggery

Suncooked for a week and aged for 3 months, ready to be licked up!

This is a very very traditional Maharashtrian pickle, sweet, citrusy and spicy all in one! It is a must to have this pickle at home. It went with almost all desserts to set off the sweetness and clean the palate or much like ketchup with the savory snacks, like thalipith, tikat puris etc. I was under the impression that red chili powder is not permitted for Upvas for the longest time but this pickle has always been part of the fasting food in Gondavale.

We fell in love with this pickle in Gondavale and my expert pickle maker Aunt Devaki made it every year in winter when the limes came cheap. Bought from the markets in Byculla, in scores by her husband PJK. We would sit down around the huge tub of limes washing, cleaning and pat drying them before quartering. Our hands went sore with the lime juice. It was an activity that we loved doing as a group of kids in our sit out in the back of our little cottage in Tata colony. So much happened then!

Ingredients

40 nos. medium sized limes, quartered

1 kg Jaggery

1/4 cup red chilli powder

1/8 cup salt

Mix all the ingredients in a large tub. Pack it into a clean dry jar and leave it for cooking in the sun.

Fresh after a week of suncooking

Pack the jar only 3/4th as the jaggery melts and bubbles up, it needs space. Else you will have lava flowing out. I did cause it, as I filled the jar to the brim and on the second day had to remove a lot of the pickle into another jar.

If you do not like jaggery use the same amount of sugar. Sugar ferments lesser than jaggery so it lasts longer too but we don't mind the fermentation as we love jaggery, well and as a family of teetotalers wee bit of alcohol is Ok we think in the food, kidding ;)

This pickles stores well at room temp. As long as it is juicy and not smelly you can use it, ours lasts a year easily.