Allotment Gardening Advice Help Chat
Eating and Drinking => Cooking, Storing and Preserving => Topic started by: tenderness on December 02, 2007, 19:51
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I've been running a little experiment in a quest to try and make lime chilli pickle the traditional Indian way.
Three dif methods, so far one failure. A whiteish slime has appeared inside one jar so it's got to go.
Methods varied:
One: Stuff limes with a spice mixture, pour over spiced oil. It didn't cover all the way to the top but I've topped up with lime juice and shaken it about a bit. This one seems fine.
Two: Slice limes, dry on teatowel. Mix with a few tsp salt, a selection of spices. Shake bottle every day to distribute juice. This one has failed. Slimy. Ugh
Three: Soak limes overnight and dry. Slice. Salt overnight. Drain juice next day into pan, heat with sugar and spices into a syrup. Pack limes into jars and cover with syrup. This one seems okay.
All have been stored (to replicate the temperature at which these would normally mature - outdoors in high summer) in my airing cupboard.
The remaining two experiments are still in there. To me, they smell foul but to the person who receives them (if I don't poison him) they will be a delight, as he loves this pickle.
So, has anyone else tried to make pickle in this way? And are there any other warning signs that my experiments may not have worked? Should I remove them from the airing cupboard? It's been nearly two months...
:)
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I've never done this sort of pickle I don't even know about it, but to say in fairness I think it needs to be covered by pickling juices to preserve( I wait to be corrected).
The warm storing space is only for an initial period in all my recipies, till it ripens and cools down. Then (it usually a few days or a week) needs moving to somewhere cool storage.
Others might know more about your pickle in question though.
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Gobs thanks. :) I just don't know about this pickle lark, and I only started with the whole preserving thing a few weeks ago.
In India jars of pickle are left in baking sun for weeks until the limes soften. But I'm just not sure my airing cupboard is replicating the environment. And yes, I am concerned that the big jar with whole limes is not completely covered with oil, though I have been shaking it every few days. Maybe I should bin it and stick with the smaller jars of pickle in syrup (where the syrup is right up to the top of the jar).
Any more ideas anyone? :?
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Well, you can hardly replicate Indian summer, can you? Especially not in the airing cupboard , rather in the windowsill, hit by sunshine. :wink: Maybe, worth a try. :)
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Method 2 is closest to the method I used except that it must be 'cooked' in direct sunshine. I made it when I was working in Texas.
It was horrible to start with but became edible after about 3 years. It was beautiful after 20 years. Honest.
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Gobs I think on reflection that trying to make Indian pickle in the middle of an English winter (with a north facing kitchen) was perhaps an error.
:lol:
WB :D Twenty years shows true dedication. I'm not sure I will be able to wait that long, and the person I'm making it for may well have passed on to the great pickle jar in the sky.
I vote: examine method one more closely. Maybe open the lid to the big jar and top up the whole limes with more spiced oil. If it smells okay. Which it may well not do to me... The oil is now very yellow and pungent but I seem to remember the person in question liking it that way. He has been known to have this pickle for breakfast, on omelettes, even with a roast dinner. That's real fusion food for you.