Lemon Pickle - South Indian Recipe

Weekend! It's time for experiments :)

I love pickles, it's the kind of condiment that add colour to your meal - even if you only have plain white rice on your plate ;)

My grandmother use to make lemon pickles, I took it for granted and regret not paying attention when she made it. She used to mistakenly called it chutney. After she passed away, I searched for the recipe to no avail because I was searching for chutneys!

I ran into this pickle again when I went to India and went crazy: This is what I was looking for! What do you call this, I remember asking the woman who served it to me... and puzzled, she answered: lemon pickle. Haha! Of course *embarrased*

Okay so I searched for it and apparently there are dozens of recipes for lemon pickle. I took one and give it a try... It's a recipe from Southern India.

There are two steps for making this pickle, first is pickling the lemons and second is seasoning it... these two steps are a week apart so in the first week you need

- about 1kg of lemons

- 250grams of salt

Quarter the lemons and rub it with the salt. Place it in clean and sterilised* jars and leave it for a week. Shake daily.

Lemon pickle - after one week

The next step is seasoning... what you need is:

1 cup/250ml of mustard oil

half a teaspoon of asafoetida**

1 tablespoon of mustard seeds

about 1 cup/250ml of lemon juice

if you like it spicy add 2 teaspoons of red chili pepper

half a cup/125grams of sugar

Lemon pickle - after seasoning

First heat the mustard oil. Remove from fire and cool a little. add powdered asafoetida and mustard seeds then cover the pan. Leave it too cool.

Then mix the rest of the ingredients, and add to the pickled lemons.

Leave for one week before serving.

Notes:

Sterilising jars in the oven

*Before pickling sterilise the jars you are going to use. This will get rid of any bacteria that will ruin your hard work :) There are a few ways you can do this. You can either cover them in boiling water completely, or simmer them completely immersed on slow heat for about 10-15 minutes.

Or the way I do it this time is to place them in the oven on low heat (about 120 degrees C) for about 20 minutes.

**asafoetida is a spice typical in Indian and Middle Eastern cooking

by Abby's Kitchen on Sunday, July 10, 2011 at 9:25am

selamat bergabung dan menikmati banyak keajaiban didalam blog saya