This pickle recipe is made with some of the most common vegetables – cauliflower, carrots, radish, green beans and green peas. The pickle is preserved in spices, oil and lemon juice and it can last for several months without the need for any refrigeration. It serves as an excellent digestive and a source of both prebiotics and probiotics.
Both the whole and ground spices are used in pickle preperation in India. The spices are not cooked but lightly toasted to make the grinding easier and to mellow sharp flavors. The Spices impart their flavour to the oil and vegetables over time. The oil used in this pickle is cold-pressed mustard oil. Other oils such as olive oil, peanut oil, and sesame oil can also be used.
Indian vegetable pickle
Cuisine: IndianDifficulty: Medium50
servings1
hour10
minutes1
hour10
minutesThis is a spicy vegetable pickle made with five vegetables, aromatics like turmeric and ginger, fruits like chilli and lemon and 12 spices. The list of ingredients is long but making it is quite easy.
Ingredients
- Vegetables
200 gm / 2 cups Cauliflower florets
200 gm / 2 cups carrots diced
150 gm / 1.5 cups radish diced
100 gm / 1 cup green beans diced
100 gm / 1 cup green beans
- Spices
1 Tbsp cumin seeds / Jeera
1 Tbsp fenugreek seeds / Methi
1 Tbsp black/brown mustard seeds / Sarso
1 Tbsp nigella seeds / Kalonji
1 Tbsp fennel seeds / Saunf
1 tsp of whole black pepper
1 Tbsp of yellow mustard seeds
1 Tbsp coriander powder.
1 tsp of Ajwain or carrom seeds.
1 Tbsp of Turmeric powder
1 tsp of Hing/ Asafoetida
1 Tbsp of Kashmiri red chilli powder
3 Tbsp of pink Himalayan salt
- Oil
400 ml/ 2 cups Mustard oil
Directions
- Prepare the vegetables. Wash peel and break the cauliflower into florets and chop the remaining vegetables. Bring water to boil in a large pot and blanch the vegetables for 5 minutes.
- Drain the water and leave the vegetables to dry on a thin cloth. Dry them indoors or outdoors if warm sunlight is available. Other ways to dehydrate are using an oven or dehydrator. To check if the blanched vegetables are dry hold them in your hands, they will feel cold but not moist on your hands.
- Prepare the fresh ginger and turmeric. Peel and slice them into juliennes or thin pieces. Cut the lemons and remove the seeds and the white part as they make the pickle bitter. Slit the green chilli and remove the seeds.
- Heat the Mustard oil until it reaches the smoke point. this reduces the pungency and bitterness of Mustard oil.Turn off the heat or remove the pan containing the oil. Allow it to cool down to a temperature where it is barely warm.
- Prepare a spice mix panchphoran with 1 Tbsp each of cumin seeds, fenugreek seeds, nigella seeds, brown Mustard seeds and fennel seeds. This will give you 5 Tbsp of this spice mix. Toast this on medium heat and grind coarsely in a mortar and pestle or a spice grinder.
- Add the warm mustard oil to a mixing bowl. Add the ginger juliennes, fresh turmeric roots, lemon, chilli, ground panchphoran and the dry spices except Kashmiri red chilli powder and yellow mustard seeds. Add salt and mix all the ingredients thoroughly.
- Grind the yellow mustard seeds coarsely. Add it to the oil along with the red chilli powder.
- Add the blanched and dried vegetables to the bowl and mix it gently with the spiced oil. Add 1/2 a cup of lemon juice or vinegar. The oil must cover every ingredient.
- Store the pickle in a dry jar. The pickle can be had instantly but the taste gets better when it is allowed to age for at least 1 week or even longer.
- Mix the ingredients in the jar everyday for a few days. The oil that has settled at the bottom is distributed again evenly over all ingredients and this increases the shelf life of the pickle. When the pickle is ready to eat, use a spoon to stir everything inside the bottle before scooping out the pickle.
- The ready pickle will be a crunchy spicy delight. Use it as a side in your meals but not more than a teaspoon. It can work as an excellent prebiotic and probiotic and improve gut health and digestion.
Recipe Video
