Rajapuri Mango Pickle

Can you believe these pictures are from 2-3 yrs ago. When I had returned from BLR and was so excited to do all the things seasonally typical of Mumbai. We had bought 5 kgs of Rajapuri Mangoes at APMC and had to pay Rs.5 per kg for dicing service. 

Rajapuri Mangoes are large about 4 -5 inches in size and are fleshy and not much of fibers. This makes them wonderful for pickles and chunda.

The sun has gone but raw Rajapuri mangoes are still on the market and even if you make this pickle indoors it still turns out good without suncooking it. Try a small batch if you haven't yet made your pickles this season.

Ingredients

5 kgs Rajapuri Raw Mangoes diced

1/4 kg red chili powder/ lal mirchi powder

4 cups salt

100 gms asafoetida / hing

1/4 cup fenugreek seeds / methi seeds

400 gms turmeric

1.25 kgs mustard seeds split / rai dal

1.5 liter oil

1.  Wash, drain and dry each diced piece of raw mango with a napkin. This is important as we got the mango diced at the market in unwashed condition. Washing it after cutting and bringing it home removes the grit from the dices. Wiping dry the diced cubes helps remove the excess water and ensures that the pickle will be well preserved.
2. Apply turmeric and some salt to the diced raw mango and allow it to drain on the mesh overnight.
3. Next morning. Toast the methi seeds and powder coarsely.
4.  In a large Parat or large deep dish remove the salt, red chili powder, split Mustard seeds, methi powder and hing. Arrange all these in concentric circles with hing in the center. 
5. Heat oil till smoking point. Let it cool for 10 mins. Then pour half of it over the spices.
6. Mix all the spices. 
7. Fill 2 five liter jars with the salted and turmeric treated diced pieces of mangoes.
8. Now add the spice mix over the diced mangoes and give a shake to the jar to ensure every piece of the mango is coated with the spice.
9. Pour the remaining half of the still hot oil over the diced spiced raw mango. Ensure there is enough oil covering the mango pieces so as to seal the mango pieces from fungal infection. 
10. Let the pickle mature for atleast 15 days before you start eating it. This pickle lasts well for a year and if you maintain enough oil above the mango pieces by topping with heated and cooled oil it last well into the second year too. 

I cannot do without a pickle when I eat rice and dal or even parathas and theplas. What about you? Are you the kind that likes an array of chutneys and pickles on the dinning table?

Lime In Salt and Sugar

Fresh and yet to be aged

This is a preserved lime recipe my Mother would make for me as a kid. She would make small quantities and we had a special glass bowl with a lid for it. Simple yet wonderful especially for a kid that suffered nausea and acidity all through growing up years. If there was this lime my Aai brought out on my plate, I would eat my varan bhaat without complaints.

It's simple to make and not much of a recipe. Just preserving the lime in lots of sugar and salt.

Ingredients

20 Indian lime

1/2 kg sugar

4 teaspoons salt

Wash the lime and drain. Pat dry with a napkin and cut each lime into 8 pieces. 

In a glass jar put all these pieces and cover up with sugar and salt. Shake the jar and keep it in the sun to cook for a week.

After 3 months this pickle will get paler yet juicier as the lime juices thicken with the sugar and salt.

In my home it is called Mooravlela limbu in Marathi or preserved lime.

Aged preserved lime after 3 months, yum!

Stuffed Chilli Pickle

This is an irresistible pickle! 

That said, I must say you need guts of steel to enjoy this one. There is something very glamorous about pickling these pretty red hot~~ chilies.

On one of those visits to APMC market I spotted this guy selling these beauties. I fell for the sheer charm and bought a whole kg. On counting they were 45 or more!

I took on the challenge of washing, drying and slitting them open to remove the seeds. They were going to be my best pickle I knew already. I am not kidding each of my 4 sisters, my 3 bros, my atyas and uncles all got a share of this pickle. They all loved it!

Well it was Sia's Monsoon Spice pictures that got me into risking scorching my hands and she in turn refers to the original recipe by Rajani of Eat write think.

I kept the same ratios but made a huge batch of the masala thinking the quantities specified by both the ladies are small compared to the no. of chilies. They had made smaller batches while mine was more than double. I had too much masala in the end but you will see in the upcoming post what I did with the extra masala. Anyways what I give here is halved quantities of the masala I actually made and used for this pickle.

Ingredients

1/4 cup Fennel Seeds

1/4 cup Cumin Seeds

1/4 cup Fenugreek Seeds
1/4 cup Mustard Seeds

2 tablespoons Nigella Seeds

3 tablespoons Turmeric Powder

1/8 cup Amchur Powder/Dry Mango Powder 

1 tablespoon asafoetida
1/4 cup salt

1/2 cup Mustard Oil

300 ml Mustard Oil  to immerse the chilies

In the microwave toast all the seeds for 30 secs. Let them cool to room temperature.

Put all of it into the mixer jar, add the turmeric, asafoetida and amchur and give it a whiz. Stop at coarse grind. 

Remove to a thali the coarse grounds and mix in salt and mustard oil.

Preparing the chillies is the biggest challenge. I would recommend handling the chilies with gloves on. Wash and pat dry. Then slit the chilies and remove the central pith and seeds. I at the time thought I did not think I needed gloves and assumed the the chilies would not be that hot. I was wrong. My hands were scorched. Until...

I made this pickle over the day long chores in the house so I was applying ice all through the day on my hands till I sat down to stuff up the slit chillies. It was an amazing feeling how the prepared spice paste cooled my hands. It assured me that the heat in the chilies will be toned down as they aged. Yet again I was to be proved wrong.

After stuffing all the chilies I lined them into a clean and dry glass jar. Pour 300 ml Mustard oil over the stuffed chilies.

Keep the jar in the sun for a week.

Then move it to store in a cool dry place.

To serve I usually remove 1 chilli at a time from the oil using a tong and divide it into bits for individual serves.

Do you need suggestion to eat this pickle? We eat it with everything Indian! It's the best pickle now in my repertoire may I say :)

Thank you Rajani and Sia, I am now the designated stuffed chilli pickle maker in my family and friend circle.

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.

Whole Awala In Brine

 Lets begin this series with the easiest of the pickles, Whole Awala In Brine.

Ingredients

1 kg Awala

1/2 cup salt

2 pinches of lime / chuna

1/4 cup julienned ginger

handful of whole green chilies

Wash and pat dry the whole Awala / Amla / Gooseberries.

Then prick the Awala from all sides with a fork to make salt absorption and adsorption possible. 

In a large bowl mix the pricked Awala, ginger, whole green chillies, salt and lime. Toss with a salad tong. The lime is added to avoid oxidation and precipitation. Else the brine becomes milky. The 2 pinches of lime keeps the brine clear.

Once mixed well, pack into a glass jar. Keep out for sunning for atleast a week till all the salt melts to give a brine.

Store in a cool dry place and shake well to mix once every fortnight to avoid fungus formation.

Uses:

As medicine for nausea or as souring agent in your curries and chutneys. Awala has that special flavor that lifts a mundane curry or chutney to a different level.

Wish you good health with this vitamin C packed pickle.

Pickles 2013

 

These are some of the pickles I made at the start of the year. Before I get to pickling the Rajapuri mangoes like last year posting these here. Those who follow the FB page would have already seen these. The recipe for each of these and some more to follow...

Raw Mango Thokku

 When you have raw mango you must make this Thokku and Kairi Panha!

 This is Kairi Panha! notched up into Slurp~~

I am only human to succumb to the charms of the mango at the advent of the summer. They were expensive but I anyways bought two. I had to make Raw Mango Thokku to be enjoyed with curd rice, fried rice papads and sandage. That is South Indian summer!  But I also had to make Panha to tell my self I am a true Maharashtrian here is Blr. for work, discount the fact that I will complete 6yrs on 2nd May in this city. Unlike the Maratha warriors who settled in Karnataka a few generations ago and wish I understood Kannada.Well there is nothing more unifying than food and I never said I don't love Raw Mango Thokku.

On another note, I  am looking for a recipe to prepare my own sandage. I love them and these are unique to this region. Project Sandage will begin in March, hope so.

Meanwhile here is the Thokku recipe yet again adapted  from Annapoorna by Mangala Barve. She calls it Takku in the typical Marathi style. That remind me I must get my copy rebound or resurrected before it disintegrates completely. I have loved it and it has been the only real cook book I owned, it was a first too gifted to me at 14yrs by my Dad's dear friend who passed away last year.

Moving on more cheerful things and the recipe for which you have come here.

Ingredients

1 raw mango

1/2 teaspoon mustard seeds

1/2 teaspoon turmeric

1 teaspoon red chili powder

1/2 teaspoon asafoetida

1 teaspoon roasted Fenugreek powder

1 tablespoon jaggery or more

1 teaspoon salt

1 tablespoon sesame oil or other

First wash the raw mango. Pat dry it. Shred it and keep aside.

Then heat oil in a wok. Splutter the mustard seeds. Reduce the flame to low. Follow in with the roasted fenugreek powder, asafoetida, turmeric, red chili powder and salt in that order. Add quickly the shredded raw mango. Stir and cook for 5 mins. It will look gooey. At this point now add jaggery and let it melt into the Thokku. Mix well and cook for another 5 mins. Switch of heat.

Let it cool completely in the wok and then store it in a pretty pickle bowl with a lid. Keep it fresh in the fridge. Serve with your favorites like curd rice, idli, dosa or anything that need a special sweet sour accompaniment. I could lick it up just like that but I make it last 7 days I resolve.

Green Chili Pickle

I can be really pungent in my remarks. Tell me what would you have done in this situation.

He: I want to return the pay check. I have not given output this month.
(Fact is he has been slogging but results may show a little later. Thank God he has a sensible boss, who stopped him from doing it.)
Me: Slap my forehead. Takes me a min to say something. Why do you have to make things complex always? There is a kid to be taken care of and still in school.
He: There is no end to the aspirations and providing feed for that.
Me: There are the social responsibilities you are committed to.
He: Shrugs and yada yada...
Me: Misfit, I muttered under the breath!

Even if I am a green chili so be it. If only He realize that life cannot be romanticized and reality bites harder when decisions are impulsive. Don't I know, I have done things differently in life but I din't have any binding responsibilities then. I have learnt the hard way that there has to be a balance in our objective and subjective career and I myself have not been able to achieve it yet.

No metaphor here, come lets make a Green chili pickle out of real fresh ones atleast they will enhance a meal in the near future and the now pungent green chilies would taste good later.

Ingredients

250 gms Green chilies
3 tablespoons mustard seeds
1 tablespoon turmeric
1 teaspoon fenugreek seeds
1 teaspoon asafoetida
1/2 cup salt
1/2 cup oil
4 tablespoons of lemon juice


Lets get the powders done first. To start, dry roast the fenugreek seeds. Grind them in a dry grinder to powder. Add the mustard seeds to the same grinder and powder coarsely. Though most pickles ask for mustard dal or split yellow mustard, ground whole mustard too does no harm. I keep the skin of the mustard seeds too.

Then cut the green chilies into tiny pieces and transfer to a large bowl. Sprinkle on it the ground mix of fenugreek seeds and mustard. Add the turmeric, salt and asafoetida. Mix well. Keep aside.

Heat the oil in a kadhai/ wok to smoking point. Put off the heat. Let it cool completely.

Now mix the chilies and spices in the oil. Follow in with the lemon juice. Mix well. Store in clean container. This pickle is ready to eat in a weeks time.

Since the raw mangoes didn't arrive from Mumbai. I have not made any other pickles this year. I like pickles and chunda made only with Rajapuri raw mangoes and we don't get those here. If I do run out of pickle later this year, I plan to make my mother's sweet lemon pickle. If I make it will post it here for sure.

I've planned to make this green chili pickle last for 6 months but let see what will be the actuals.

Before I sign off let me say "I am proud of you Misfit" :) even though I don't agree.

Baby Onions and Chilies in Vinegar

Some time ago I had put some baby onions (sambar onions) in vinegar and forgotten about it. Then yesterday I bought these chilies for Mirch ka Salan that I want to try out. I removed the baby onions to check the taste. I flipped completely.

I knew I would not need more than 6 chilies for the two of us so had to do something with the rest of the chilies. They went into the vinegar. That was the easiest way to enhance my fantasies of jalapenos in vinegar. I washed and pat dried them. One slit in each chili to ensure pickling inside out. I let the chilies swim in the onion pink vinegar and let the already pickled onions in the same jar sit atop the green chilies. They looked picture perfect I thought.

I know they are not jalapenos but can someone tell me what type they are?

Date: 25th Nov 2012

7 Jalapenos in vinegar with 2 cloves of garlic and 25 nos. black pepper corns

Moramba

The first bowl with the yellow stuff is the Moramba. It literally means soaked mango. It validates the name by its taste too. Moramba is the Indian mango jam. It goes as an accompaniment with spicy eats or is eaten as is on fasting days. Very easy to make and children love it too.

Ingredients

1 kg Rajapuri Mangoes
1 kg granular sugar
1-2 teaspoons cardamom powder

Just like we did for the chunda grate the mango. In a heavy bottom vessel mix the sugar and mango shreds. Place on the heat and cook till you get a sticky jam like consistency. Keep stiring all the while. It takes couple of hours to cook it to the jam like consistency. I normally do not cook it at one go. I keep stirring and cooking for 1/2 hr put off the gas for a while take a break then again cook for half hour. I keep doing this till completely cooked. Stirring continously for 2hrs may end up giving you a frozen shoulder so take a break. Cool for a day when done. The next day mix in the cardamom powder and store in a jar. The yellow color is natural and it looks yummy.

So now you know the difference between a chunda and moramba. I am partial to the Chunda though as the sun does a trick that heat cannot do to the same ingredients.

Chunda

Chunda is the Gujarathi influence in my life. It is one of the many dishes I learnt from my old neighbours the Rajput family. The eldest lady Ji- aaji, Kaki and her three daughters, Indu, Ansu, Preeti spent a lot of time cooking for the family and I found it really funny that the two men in the family our pet Japan Baba, Rameshbhai were really pampered. These ladies kept aside all their likes and dislikes and cooked only what these men wanted to eat each day. Chunda was indispensible in their house it was very ritualistically made in summer months and stocked for the year.

It is quite simple to make yet has the suncooked goodness packed in it.

Ingredients

1 kg Rajapuri raw mangoes
750 gms granular sugar
1/2 cup powdered cumin seeds
1/2 cup red chilli powder
1 tablespoon salt

First wash and pat dry the mangoes. Peel the green skins. Use the coarse grate to get a pile of raw mango shreds. Incase Rajapuri mangoes are not available any mangoes with a lot of flesh and small seed can be used.

In a huge vessel or glass jar mix the shredded mangoes and sugar and allow to cook in the sun. Do not seal the jar but tie a cloth on the mouth to keep out the dirt. Put it in direct sunlight till you get transaparent raw mango shreds and the mix is sticky like honey yet crunchy in taste. Every day put the jar in the sun and in the evening bring it indoors to mix it well. Do not leave the jar out at night as dewdrops might get into it and that will spoil the preserve. Once the mix is stringy and finally you are ready to store it for the year mix in the salt, chilli powder, and cumin seed powder. Finally it should have the color and consistency as seen in the picture.

Chunda is now ready to be served with all the Gujarathi savories like thepla, fafda, ganthia, khari puri etc etc. As kids Kaki's first chapatis and fulkas with chunda or ghee shakkar were always fed to us every day. It is sweet memories how I was once who got it first then my siblings had their turns to get it first. Kaki used to call my youngest cousin, Kanha or Kanhiya as in Lord Krishna she actually believed that she was feeding the lord himself when she fed him such was her belief. We brats would have a good laugh at her but it did not shake her.

Try it out once and you will make it year on year.

Garlic Pickle

It was that time of the year when Chaturmaas the four month sacred period was going to start. I had some garlic bulbs that were unused and I was not ready to use garlic in anything and everything I cooked. So decided to make a pickle. This year I had already made 4 other preserves hence didn't want to go about making the masala myself. Also there was a packet of Bedekar's Pickle masala lying around that I wanted to use. Here is what I did.

Ingredients

3 bulbs garlic
1 table spoon Bedekar's pickle masala
1/2 lime juice
1/2 cup oil

Peeled the pods and cleaned to get the garlic pods. Fried them in oil for 2 mins. Let it cool for 5 mins added masala, lime juice and mixed. Cooled completely through the day. Before going to bed transfered the pickle into a dry jar. It gave me about 300 ml jar pickle. Generally we start using pickles as soon as they are made even if they haven't aged yet. This pickle was fortunate it aged for 4 months.

The first trial was with curd rice served to my friends and they gave a thumbs up!

P.S: I realize now my pickles have a story each attached to it especially the Kairiche Pickle. Will share my labours love with you soon and the Upadvyap we did for it all for the love of home made pickle with the specific type of mangoes that we like so much. Friends I will be away till next year so Happy New Year! in advance.

Limbachya Salache Lonche

Last Summer holidays my family and friends visited me. There were 5 kids who had lime juice thrice a day all made by themselves. I didn't want to stop them from enjoying their juice making session either so I would give them all things needed apparatus and all and send them out onto the sit out. All parents gleemed amusedly by the noise they made and believe me the juice was superb. Can you believe how many lime peels I might have collected. They were not squeezing out the juice fully so I didn't want to throw away the peels. So I gave them a big empty jar and told them to put the used lime peels in it and top it up with salt layer. In 15 days I had a full jar. After the kids left and I felt lonely I started a new activity of putting the jar in the sun on the terrace every morning before leaving for office and getting it back into the kitchen in the evening before dinner. In a month I got lovely darkened lime in brine. I tasted it and since this was used lime it did not taste as good as lime with the juice that we make usually. So what did I do.

Ingredients

About 1 kg of lime peels in brine
1/4 cup red chilli powder
1 tablespoon mustard seeds
1/4 cup sambar powder
1/2 cup Oil

Heated oil in sauce pan. Spluttered mustard in the oil. Removed from heat allowed to cool for 5 mins. Added chilli powder, sambar powder and lime in brine. Mixed well and stored. It was ready to eat immediately. Threw away the brine.

I carried it to office in my lunch box the next day and my colleague who does not like any taste other than the typical south indian actually liked it. But I didn't tell her this secret recipe and the story for the fear of being tagged thrifty.

Five Pickles and a Chutney

This is a trailer for the upcoming posts.

Lovely colors

Mango Tree in the background

Moramba- Lonche- Chunda

Pickles perched on a wall

Winter Mangoes

Lip Smacking Pickles

Lasun Chutney