Aayi makes some of the amazing pickles I have ever tasted. I never liked any of the ready made pickles because of this reason. She puts very less oil and her pickles remain good for a very long time (more than 2 years, if I don’t finish them off before that). Her pickles are very popular among friends and family. But somehow I don’t remember tasting her sweet pickle. I always loved the spicy pickles, so it is possible that she stopped making this since I never ate it as a kid. Since my brother is not a big pickle fan, most of her pickles come to me. Now I have my husband’s and SIL’s company, who both are great pickle fans.
Aayi just sent me these pictures. She used the big totapuri mangoes for this. Any unripe mangoes can be used. This pickle needs to be used up in 2-3 weeks.
Mango sweet pickle(GooD nonche)
Ingredients
- 20-25 big pieces of raw mangoes
- 2-3 tea spn chili powder or 7-8 whole red chilies
- 2 tbl spns jaggery
- 2 tea spn mustard seeds
- 1/2 tea spn fenugreek seeds
- 1/4 tea spn asafoetida
- Oil
- Salt
Instructions
- Mix mango pieces with jaggery, salt and chili powder.
- Cook till the pieces are slightly cooked and all jaggery is melted and the syrup becomes slightly thick. Take off from heat.
- Heat oil and fry mustard seeds and fenugreek seeds.
- Add asafoetida. (Take care not to burn anything, mustard becomes bitter when it gets burnt). Make a powder.
- Add the powder to the cooked mangoes and mix well.
- When it is cooled to room temperature, pour it in air tight container and refrigerate it.
- This can be consumed immediately.
- This pickle is usually served with chapathis.
Notes
Mango sweet pickle(GooD nonche)
Ingredients
- 20-25 big pieces of raw mangoes
- 2-3 tea spn chili powder or 7-8 whole red chilies
- 2 tbl spns jaggery
- 2 tea spn mustard seeds
- 1/2 tea spn fenugreek seeds
- 1/4 tea spn asafoetida
- Oil
- Salt
Instructions
- Mix mango pieces with jaggery, salt and chili powder.
- Cook till the pieces are slightly cooked and all jaggery is melted and the syrup becomes slightly thick. Take off from heat.
- Heat oil and fry mustard seeds and fenugreek seeds.
- Add asafoetida. (Take care not to burn anything, mustard becomes bitter when it gets burnt). Make a powder.
- Add the powder to the cooked mangoes and mix well.
- When it is cooled to room temperature, pour it in air tight container and refrigerate it.
- This can be consumed immediately.
- This pickle is usually served with chapathis.
Notes
Being from the coastal region, fish was a big part of our food. While growing up, aayi would make the traditional fish dishes like this fish fry , tepla ambat , alle kande ambat , dhoddak etc. But over the years, thanks to TV and internet, our food has been influenced by other cuisines too. This spicy fish fry is one such dish I make very often now.
Whenever we go out to eat in Bangalore, my brother orders masala fry. He also figured out a recipe for that . This spicy fish fry is inspired by that. Then I started adding few curry leaves to it, inspired by Kerala style fish fry. Over the years, I tried many different masalas and realized what we liked the most was the very basic masala that aayi uses. I just skip the rava coating, add few curry leaves and it tastes just out of this world. I have tried this with many different varieties of fish – salmon, tilapia, king fish, pomfret etc. It really works well with any big fish fillet. I prepared this when I was in India couple of months ago. Aayi told me she also makes it same way – may be a mother-daughter thing :).
Spicy Fish Fry
Ingredients
- 4 big fish fillets king fish, pomfret, salmon or tilapia
- 1 tbl spn tamarind do not use extract, it does not make thick paste
- 4-5 big garlic cloves if using smaller variety available in India, use about 8-10
- 1 tea spn chilli powder use more if you can handle the heat
- 7-8 curry leaves
- Oil
- Salt
Instructions
- Make a thick paste of tamarind, garlic, chilli powder and salt.
- Apply the paste to fish pieces and leave it for atleast 30mins.
- Heat a tava and spread a little oil.
- Cut curry leaves in few pieces.
- Spread half of the leaves on the tava.
- Keep the marinated fish on the curry leaves.
- Spread remaining leaves on the top.
- Fry from both sides till the fish is cooked through.
- Serve hot with lemon and onion rings.
