There are many ways to pickle fruits and vegetables. However, the base ingredients remain the same; more or less. The Indian Pickle has plenty of oil, salt, and chilli powder, no matter the recipe (unless the pickle happens to be sweet).
Here is another version of pickling lemons. I wrote about an earlier version which involves marinating the limes/lemons for a week. This method is a little simpler. The lemons are cooked before being pickled with the spices.
Ingredients:
- 6 juicy lemons (whole lemons)
- 1 teaspoon turmeric powder
- 1.5 - 2 tablespoons salt
- 2 tablespoons (or more) chilli powder
- 1 teaspoon black mustard seeds
- 1 teaspoon fenugreek seeds
- 1/2 teaspoon hing / asafoetida
- 1/4 cup + 1 tablespoon sesame oil
Preparation:
- In a pot, boil around 4 cups of water (enough water to immerse the lemons in)
- When the water is hot, add the whole lemons. Cover the pot with a tight lid and allow the lemons to cook for 10 minutes in the boiling water.
- After 10 minutes, remove the pot from the heat, keep the lid closed and let the lemons continue to cook for another 10 minutes in the residual heat. Then, drain the water and allow the lemons to cool.
- When cool, cut the lemons into bite-sized pieces. Add the cut lemons (with their juices and all) into a bowl and coat them with salt and turmeric. Sprinkle the salted lemons with the chilli powder.
- Heat 1/4 cup sesame oil and splutter a teaspoon of mustard seeds in it. Pour the hot oil and mustard seeds on top of the chilli powder and mix everything well.
- Dry roast a teaspoon of fenugreek seeds along with Hing until the fenugreek begins turning dark brownish red and releases its aroma.
- Grind the roasted seeds and hing to a fine powder. Mix this powder into the spiced lemons.
- Let the pickled lemons cool. Then, transfer to a clean, air-tight jar. Pour a tablespoon of sesame oil on top of the pickle, close the jar and refrigerate.
It will take a couple of days for the flavors to completely meld into the cooked lemons.
Interesting.. Never attempted any kind of pickles so far. Do you mean six of our small Indian sized lemons or bigger ones?
ReplyDeleteHey Megha, 6 of our Indian lemons will do nicely because although they are smaller, they are far more intense and sour. You can adjust the spices a little if you would like. This is actually a very easy way to pickle lemons :)
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