Ginger Pickle

My neighbour  gave me some lovely andhra ginger pickle.  This has been a favourite at home and I always bought the Priya pickle which is extremely good.  But the freshly made pickle had a special taste of its own.  I asked her for the recipe and she immediately went into her store and got out an old diary which had recipes that her mother had written.  She also had a traditional cup measure that she used for the ingredients and I just substituted it with some approximate measures.  And the brilliant red colour of her pickle was due to Byadgi chilie powder (that I did not have). Nevertheless, I was ready to experiment, but in small quatities.  I picked up 100 gms of ginger which resulted in half a bottle of the finished product.  Nothing like home made pickle....

Mrs NCM's recipe -

Ingredients:

Ginger - 250 gms
Tamarind - 250 gms
Garlic - 100 gms - peel - keep about 1/4 of this for seasoning
Oil - 250 gms ( part of this to be used for seasoning)
Chilie powder - 100 gms *
Sugar - 100 gms **
Salt - to taste
Methi powder - 1/2 tsp ( roasted and ground)

Seasoning:
Oil
Bengal gram dal (Chana) - 1 tsp
Black gram dal (Urad ) - 1 tsp
Mustard - 1 tsp
Curry leaves - one sprig
Peeled garlic cloves


If you are using raw tamarind.  Wash well.
Heat water. Cool. Soak tamarind for a few hours.
I used tamarind paste - it said on the packet - 1 tsp equiv. to 1 lime sized piece of tamarind. I took that as 20 gms approximately.

Wash ginger well - peel and then chop into small pieces
Blend to fine paste
Add the softened tamarind after squeezing out all the water.
And sugar, garlic, salt
Grind to smooth paste.

Remove.

Take the oil, heat, add the mustard, dals.  When mustard splutters add garlic and a little later the curry leaves.  Cool and then add to the ginger paste. Add the remaining oil as well.

Put in clean bottle with a well fitting lid.

* Chilie powder quantity will vary according to the pungency.
** Jaggery is traditionally added. But one has to be careful to see that there are no impurities.
You will need to check the taste sometime to see if it needs a little more salt, chilie or sugar.  And that is not an easy job if you do it periodically like I did :-)