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What to do with bitter gourd? Pickle it

Pickles are easy to come by and serve to perk up a bland meal. Here’s how to pickle bitter gourd and small, green mangoes.

Ingredients:

Bittergourd: 2

Vinegar: half cup

Garlic: two whole pods, de-skinned

Green chillies: 8

Ginger: a small piece

Fenugreek powder: quarter tsp

Mustard seeds, de-husked and coarsely ground : 1 tbsp

Salt: To taste

Gingelly oil

Method

Wash the bittergourds. Cut lengthwise. Mix in salt and vinegar. Marinate for 10 minutes. Wash the bittergourd. Dab it dry. Cut into one-inch length. Remove the seeds and pith and julienne lengthwise. Add salt and dry the bitter gourd for a day in the hot sun. Thereafter, slit the garlic, green chillies and ginger. Heat gingelly oil.

Splutter mustard seeds and curry leaves.

Add the slit green chillies, ginger and garlic. Sauté this for two to three minutes.

Add quarter teaspoon fenugreek powder and one tablespoon of de-husked and coarsely ground mustard seeds .

Put in the bitter gourd. Stir to coat contents. Switch off the gas flame. Add half cup to one cup vinegar and salt. Allow the pickle to cool and bottle.

Ingredients

Thick fleshed green mangoes, preferably Neelam: 25

Fenugreek: 50 gm

Gingelly oil: 4 cups

Mustard seeds without skin : 200 gm

Garlic: 2 cups

Kashmiri red chilli powder: Half to three-fourths kilo

Turmeric powder: 20 gm

Salt: one and a half to two cups.

Method

Cut each whole mango into 12 to 14 pieces with the inside skin of the nut. Remove the innermost white seed while retaining the thick skin on the nut. Cut into cubes. Heat the oil well. Add fenugreek. Turn off the heat immediately. Next add garlic into the hot oil. Add chilli and turmeric powder.

After the oil cools well, add kadike parippe and salt.

Add the mixture into the cut mangoes and mix well.

Transfer the contents into a bottle.

After 24 hours (do not refrigerate), open the bottle and check if the oil floats on top of the pickle mixture. (The oil prevents fungus formation). If not, heat a little more gingelly oil.

Only after it cools, add to the pickle mixture.

Use the pickle only after a period of time, say, one month. Its flavour enhances with each month. This pickle keeps for at least a year.

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