{"id":19067,"date":"2017-01-07T21:08:40","date_gmt":"2017-01-07T20:08:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.withaglass.com\/?p=19067"},"modified":"2017-01-07T21:08:40","modified_gmt":"2017-01-07T20:08:40","slug":"indian-chilli-pickles","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.withaglass.com\/?p=19067","title":{"rendered":"Indian Chilli Pickles"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"indian_pickledchillip\"I you\u00a0didn’t expect\u00a0to see a pickling post in January, believe me, I’m as surprised as you are, but sometimes cravings make one forget about the\u00a0seasonality of fresh produce.\u00a0After my French cuisine-inspired Christmas and New Year’s Eve I’ve been craving fiery, spicy, rich Indian food more than ever, hence probably this\u00a0pickling idea. As\u00a0a chilli addict\u00a0and\u00a0a serial pickler I have my\u00a0pantry, fridge and kitchen filled with different spicy jars. I’ve been pickling for years, constantly searching for new ideas from all around the world…. so finally I thought it was time to turn to Indian cuisine I love more and more every year. My\u00a0first experiment was\u00a0so successful, I can only regret I haven’t tried making any Indian preserves\u00a0before\u00a0and I\u00a0strongly recommend\u00a0trying these\u00a0not only to Indian food lovers but all my fellow chilli addicts.<\/p>\n

I have combined\u00a0two sources, one from\u00a0the fantastic book by\u00a0Meera Sodha’s (Fresh India)<\/a>\u00a0and another from the newly discovered\u00a0Healthy Veg Recipes\u00a0website (in English and Hindi)<\/a>, the latter recipe being\u00a0much\u00a0richer in spices and closer to what I had in mind thinking of Indian pickled chilli. If you know Patak’s, the famous British brand of Indian pickles, and if you love their products as much as I do (my favourite are chilli and mango pickles), you can imagine how thrilled I was to discover my very first homemamde\u00a0Indian pickles had this distinctive Patak’s aroma I’m totally addicted to! Moreover, they seemed crunchier\u00a0and less oily than the famous jars’ content. Needless to say, I feel it’s only the beginning of my\u00a0long adventure with Indian pickling…<\/p>\n

These chillies are perfect on sandwiches, in tortilla rolls, in scrambled eggs (!!!) and simply served with any dish, not necessarily Indian. My favourite light breakfast (I’m rarely hungry in them morning) is\u00a0now a slice of crisp thin bread (Finncrisp is the best!) with a thick layer of goat cheese or quark\/curd cheese and two or three slices of these pickles. I have no words to describe how fantastic it is!<\/p>\n

TIPS:\u00a0In theory\u00a0fresh chilli is not now in season\u00a0in this part of the world, but the one sold by my supermarket comes from Moroccan greenhouses,\u00a0smells great and apparently\u00a0is perfect for pickles even in the middle of winter.<\/p>\n

I’ve checked on many online sources and I saw that Indian dried spices are available practically all around the world, so try not to skip any of the below ingredients (such as asafoetida, which\u00a0cannot be substituted and it adds a certain je-ne-sais-quoi to these pickles and make them really special). Mustard oil is also very good here.<\/p>\n

The below spice amounts can be changed to your taste, but be careful with fenugreek. It’s easy to overdose and thus make the whole jar of pickles bitter (I’ve had this awful experience once with a curry dish). \u00a0Asafoetida is quite strong, but it’s not as dangerous as fenugreek (in my opinion).<\/p>\n

You will find all the spices and the mustard oil in Indian\/Sri Lankan grocery shops. Mustard oil does make a huge difference in taste…<\/p>\n

You can also use raw red chilli, but Indian sources suggest green raw chilli is the best for pickling. Obviously adapt the heat level to your taste and capacity to eat fiery food. In general, I’d recommend medium hot chillies (but this is a rather personal concept).<\/p>\n

The chilli pieces must be submerged in the pickling liquid, so once you mix everything, you must put something heavy on top. A Japanese pickling jar<\/a> with a weight will be perfect, but you can also use a bigger jar for pickling and a\u00a0small clean jar filled with water as a weight. Afterwards you should put a lid on the jar or cover with plastic film, so that no unwanted bacteria gets inside.<\/p>\n

Special equipment: disposable gloves<\/em><\/p>\n

Preparation: 15 minutes + minimum 3 days<\/em><\/p>\n

Ingredients:<\/em><\/p>\n

250 g (about 1\/2 lb) fresh green chillies without stalks<\/em><\/p>\n

50 ml mustard oil<\/em><\/p>\n

6\u00a0teaspoons salt<\/em><\/p>\n

juice from 1 lime (or 1\/2 lemon)<\/em><\/p>\n

3 heaped teaspoons sugar<\/em><\/p>\n

3 tablespoons vinegar (I’ve used cider vinegar)<\/em><\/p>\n

2 tablespoons white\/yellow mustard seeds<\/em><\/p>\n

1 teaspoon coriander seeds<\/em><\/p>\n

2 teaspoons fennel seeds<\/em><\/p>\n

1\/2 teaspoon fenugreek\u00a0seeds<\/em><\/p>\n

1\/3 teaspoon asafoetida powder<\/em><\/p>\n

Grind all the spices in a spice grinder or in a cheap coffee grinder (I have one I bought only for spices, see TIPS above).<\/p>\n

Put on disposable gloves. Slice the chillies or cut them into bite-sized pieces. (Remove the seeds and white parts if you want less heat).<\/p>\n

Place the chilli pieces tightly in a glass jar or any other container (a Japanese pickling jar, such as this one<\/a> is a fantastic gadget here).<\/p>\n

Add the spices.<\/p>\n

Heat the oil (but don’t boil it) and pour it over the chillies.<\/p>\n

Add the lime juice, the vinegar, the salt and give it a good stir.<\/p>\n

Put something heavy weight on top (if you have a Japanese pickling jar you have a special heavy “cover”), made of ceramic or glass (a small jar filled with water will be ok), so that the chillies are all submerged in the oily mixture.<\/p>\n

Cover well with plastic wrap or a cover, so that no bacteria gets inside, and leave at room temperature for two-three days. Stir the content once a day with a clean fork or spoon.<\/p>\n

The chillies will soften, their volume will be reduced and their colour will change to an olive hue; then they will be ready to eat.<\/p>\n

Store the pickles tightly closed in the fridge and whenever you fish some pieces out, make sure you use a clean fork or spoon (i.e. not used on any other food product).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I you\u00a0didn’t expect\u00a0to see a pickling post in January, believe me, I’m as surprised as you are, but sometimes cravings make one forget about the\u00a0seasonality…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":19073,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[220,35,50,133,85,18],"tags":[12],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.withaglass.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19067"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.withaglass.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.withaglass.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.withaglass.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.withaglass.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=19067"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/www.withaglass.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19067\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19077,"href":"https:\/\/www.withaglass.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19067\/revisions\/19077"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.withaglass.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/19073"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.withaglass.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=19067"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.withaglass.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=19067"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.withaglass.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=19067"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}