Vegetables are hard to cook! What I mean is that it’s much harder to make vegetables taste good especially bitter vegetables like spinach, mustard leaves, bitter gourd (name says it!), egg plant. That’s why the Indian cooking gets all sort of weird and complex and every dish is accompanied by chutneys, pickles, raitas and salads.
Not only we have all sorts of accompaniments but there are also rules around what kind of accompaniments goes with what kind of dishes.
The lemon, ginger and chilli pickle is made only in winters in Punjab and eaten with winter dishes such as corn chapatis and saag made from mustard leaves, aloo and gobi (cauliflower and potatoes), aloo, gajar and matar (carrots, potatoes and peas) among others. I haven’t posted any of these recipes but these are on my list of recipes to publish very, very soon!
This recipe for making lemon, ginger and chilli pickle is super easy to make and is ready in 2-3 days.
However, you want to use the Indian lemons, called nimbu in Punjabi, for this pickle. The Indian lemon is green in colour when unripe and becomes yellow when it ripens. It has a very thin, papery skin unlike the lemons grown in the Mediterranean. However, to confuse matters, Indian lime can also become yellow in colour when it matures. I know! Just ask for nimbu at your local sabji wala!
Hope you will give it a try!
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Ingredients
- 400 gram lime quartered
- 175 gram ginger peeled and thinly sliced
- 7-8 green chillies sliced
- 75 gram salt
- 2 tsp turmeric powder
- 1 tsp red chilli powder
Instructions
- Wash lemon, ginger and chillies. Please make sure to dry them completely so that there is not even a whiff of moisture.
- Wash your hands and make sure to completely dry it. It is really important that your hands are completely dry as otherwise the pickle will rot.
- Slice the limes into quarter (or smaller pieces depending on the size of the lemons).
- Peel and thinly slice the ginger in 1-2" long slices.
- Remove the stem end of the chillies and slice the chillies lengthwise. (or you can chop them roughly).
- Mix in limes, ginger, chillies, salt, turmeric and red chillies.
- Store the pickle in an air-tight glass jar (AND never use a plastic or metal jar and never, ever use a wet spoon to take out the pickle!).
- Leave it for 2-3 days before digging into it!
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Very easy and wonderful recipe like it
Thanks for publishing this nimbu and adrak aachar! Looks very easy to make, definitely going to try it!
Are you going to publish the galgal Achaar recipe ?