Mostly Plants

After Comrade Don introduced me to Hot Lime Pickle (and other Indian relishes) last summer, I decided to see what I could learn about making my own.

Turns out, it’s easy.

Eqipment:

1 wide-mouth quart mason jar
1 pint mason jar
Spare change, pebbles, or something else heavy.

Ingredients:

Six limes
1 garlic bulb
1 hand of ginger
Lots of kosher or pickling salt
3 ounces of hot chili peppers (that’s a lot)
Methi (fenugreek) seeds (they’re not in the spice section of your local grocery; they’re in the ‘foreign’ or ‘ethnic’ section).
Mustard seeds
Ground turmeric

Method:

Cut limes into thin wedges over a bowl, catching the juice.  Put wedges in bowl and salt liberally. Cut tops off the hot peppers, slice down the side, throw in bowl with limes and salt liberally.  Slice garlic and ginger thin, put in bowl, and salt liberally.  Mix.  Violently.  The mixture should smell very limey.  Toss in methi and mustard seeds.

Pack the mixture into your quart mason jar.  I emphasize pack.  The items should not be loosely tossed in, but squished with all of your might, so as to remove any air pockets and thoroughly juice the limes.  Fill your pint jar with spare change and use it to really ram the vegetables down into the quart jar.  Then leave it in place to hold everything under the lime juice.  If the lime juice does not fully cover the vegetables, squish more.  If it still isn’t enough, go buy some lime juice and squirt it in until they’re covered.

Wait a week or three.  Refrigerate.  Eat.

Update: One of my two quarts is now done after ten days, and very tasty.  Could use some more fermenting, but I’m gonna call it good.  The other, which is wetter due to more added lime juice, still tastes fresher.  So I’m leaving it out longer.

Tags:   process oriented · recipe · things that are shiny · vegan · vegetarianNo Comments