Raw Mango Pickle -

Just like every year never goes by without a mango post on my blog, I have a recipe to share with Mangoes today. Everyone celebrates this season with Mangoes and I did too. Ripe or raw Mangoes are thoroughly the best creations of nature. The stint of Mangoes are only for a short span every year, so this makes everyone go extremely wild and crazy for this wonder fruit. I’m here to share a recipe with raw Mangoes, i.e. in its most divine form, the pickle!

I have started venturing into pickling from this year when the bug just bit me. :) I have tried two kinds already and the third one is in process with Citron Lime or the Heralekai, the recipe of which which I will share too. I do have recipes in line for sun dried Potato Chips and Ridge gourd chips also. All these are summer recipes but the irony being, I’m writing them down when the summer has already decided to say goodbye for this year!

When I was young I remember Amma would make the midi mavinkai pickle. I remember that beautiful bharani jar being tightly wrapped with a towel and kept at the storage for an year for fermentation. These are the only memories I have and I don’t have any clue about what went into her pickles. She would make it painstakingly though. Sun drying, roasting, grinding and what not. It was a huge jar then. That said, I fear to make brine pickles as I still haven’t got the confidence whether it’ll store well in my hands. The midi mavinkai is the most toughest of all pickles as it requires days and months of fermentation and patience.

So I decided to start off with the instant method of pickling process. The next summer I will try the slow process of using brine with the baby Mango, if I ever get my hands on them. When I had been to a family gathering, there was this beautiful pickle that was served made with raw Mangoes that was finely chopped into tiny bits and I could gulp down all of it at once. It tasted divine and yes it was instantly made for the ceremony.

I have used rock salt, (which you can easily substitute with table salt too), chilli powder, roasted fenugreek powder (Methi Powder) and roasted mustard powder. With just five ingredients you can make this pickle and it requires not much of an effort, but you need to maintain clean utensils. Even better, if you use sun dried glass/porcelain/ceramic mixing bowl, a sun dried wooden spoon, a sun dried wooden chopping board and sun dried salt.

Pickling teaches one a lot of things and it needs a lot of cleanliness. A dry kitchen with no moisture is the best environment for the pickling process. Make sure you never handle the pickled Mangoes with bare hands.

Raw Mango Pickle

Servings: 1 jar
Time: 60 mins
Difficulty: easy
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This is an instant version of pickle, although, it leaves out its juices after a good week in the refrigerator. I recommend serving this pickle after a month of its preparation. Store the pickle in a good, well washed and sun dried ceramic jar. This recipe is for a Jar of mango pickle. (A 1 litre Jar) Since this is a very small quantity I have used red chilli powder. You can use the dry byadgi chillies for this. Roast and grind around 10 chillies and you have a good red chilli powder. You can also add a tempering with sesame oil or mustard oil if you plan to store it on the counter. The tempering should have asafoetida as a preservative.

Ingredients

Ingredients:

6 – Raw Mangoes (Washed and Dried)
6 tbsp – Red Chilli Powder
6 tsp – Fenugreek Seeds (Methi Seeds)
6 tsp – Mustard Seeds
4 tbsp – Rock Salt

Directions

Make sure you have clean dry hands before you start the process.
After a good wash, let the mangoes dry naturally on a kitchen towel.
Chop the mangoes into small pieces. I chopped them into very tiny chunks so that the Mango flavour oozes out well.

Add the chopped Mangoes into a glass mixing bowl. Crush the rock salt with a mortar and pestle (makes the salt fast dissolving). Add the crushed salt and mix well with a wooden ladle. Let it rest for half and hour.

Roast the fenugreek and mustard seeds together in a small wok till the mustard seeds start spluttering. I roast the seeds together because there are good chances of having burnt mustard seeds. Let it cool.