It all started with a post on Facebook. My friend Amita wrote about a harrowing experience she’d had with an online order of pickles. She was lured by some “mouth-watering pictures of plump veggies glistening with oil, sitting on golden paranthas,” but ended up feeling “foolish and short-changed”. The pickles cost a bomb, but leaked oil when they arrived. The vegetables were still raw, and she was informed that she had to keep the jar out in the sun for several days. No, that was not nice.

Pleasant pickles

I, on the other hand, had a smooth experience with a recent pickle delivery. For one, I had not asked for them, so they came as a pleasant surprise. Two, they were well-packed and leaked no oil. Three, though I could only try out a tiny bit from the two kinds of pickles that had arrived, they were rather good.

The pickles are from Ammi ke Achar, and are being marketed by a young man called Sahil Hassan, who runs a food-delivery system known as Sassy Begum. The Hassan family prepares and sells hot and delicious Hyderabadi pickles prepared with garlic, mango, gongura, tamarind, and lime.

The spicy mango achar in avvakai masala, and the garlic pickle are for ₹375 (for 300g). The raw tamarind thokku chutney (with tamarind, green chillies, fenugreek seeds), nimmakaya (lime), and gongura pickles are for ₹300 (for 300g).

I liked the masala and the tartness of their mango pickle, and the raw, edgy bite of the garlic pickle. The pickle recipes, Sahil tells me, have been in the family for generations. Some of them can be found in Saffron and Pearls, a book written by his mother, Doreen Hassan.

In my house, people have diverse views about pickles. My favourite is gobhi-gajar-shalgam – a sweet and sour pickle of cauliflower, carrots, and turnips. My friend Raj got me some of this recently, and I have been quietly licking my fingers. My wife likes the Bengali sweet pickle prepared with a berry called kul. Our home-manager loves anything that is hot and spicy, so she embraced a prawn pickle that another friend had brought for us last week. And she has been lapping up Ammi ke Achar.

Banarasi chillies

In the last few months, I have ordered pickles online from Delight Foods, and another site called Place of Origin. You get everything here — from the stuffed red chillies of Banaras to sweet lemon pickle, topa kuler achar, and jackfruit pickle.

Products from the best pickle place in Delhi — Harnarain Gokulchand in Khari Baoli — can also be bought online. From an Assamese food site, I ordered some pork pickle which was, however, not very exciting.

But if you want to make your own pickle, you could try this baingan ka achar (eggplant pickle) from Doreen Hassan’s book: Wash, dry, and cube 750g of eggplants. Soak them in salted water for 3-4 hours. Take 1 litre of vinegar. Take 30g red chillies and grind them in some of the vinegar. Grind this to a fine paste, along with 30g green chillies, 2tsp turmeric powder, 1 tsp black pepper, 1/2tsp fenugreek, 1tsp mustard seeds and ½ tbsp cumin seed, using more of the vinegar as needed.

Heat ½ litre of refined groundnut oil; bring to a boil. Add the masala and fry until fragrant. Add 2 sprigs of curry leaves, 3tsp chopped ginger, and 2tsp of chopped garlic. Fry well. Add salt. Add the eggplants and 150g of sugar. Add the remaining vinegar. Cook on slow heat till the eggplants are done and the gravy has thickened. Cool and bottle.

Try it out. You will — pardon the pun — relish it.

For more information, call 9999122999 or log on to sassybegum.com.

source: http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> Life & Style> Food / by Rahul Verma / February 23rd, 2019