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Makes
100 mangoes & 3 cups of sauce
Author Notes
To be frank, I'm better off sending a sample of this classic South Indian Pickle to Food52 in lieu of posting the recipe for the contest.
It was a stroke of blue moon (super moon??) luck that I stumbled upon these beauties at my local grocery. Promptly got into a hyper selfish mode the first time I saw these tiny mangoes and bought all that I could, A week later they had fresh stock, after buying up 2 lbs more, I posted the location of the store on my Blog, only to have a gaggle of senior South Indian ladies make a beeline for the mangoes (& to think the cashier gave me a strange look when ringing me up!)
During the mango season in India, only the strongest fruits make it to a ripe stage from the cluster of 100s that bud out from the inflorescence. The rest of the baby fruits drop off at the first strong breeze. the best of these (i.e the unbruised ones ) are washed , dried, rubbed with sesame oil and then packed in salt. A week later the wrinkled fruits swim around in a brine generated by the liquid from the mangoes itself. The brine is then blended with toasted chile powder & crushed mustard to make a thick spicy sauce The mangoes are then added back. A few weeks of rest, and the end result is a delicious crunchy baby mango pickle and an equally delicious sauce that kicks up just about everything a couple of notches!
Although this is a classic recipe made in countless South Indian homes, I adapted this from Ammini Ramachandran's book 'grains greens and grated coconut' for the proportions and digressed to follow the technique that I learned from my mother. —Panfusine
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Ingredients
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100
baby mangoes about 3/4 - 1 inch long
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1 cup
kosher salt
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2 cups
arbol chiles toasted and powdered
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1 cup
black mustard seeds, crushed
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1/4 cup + 2 tablespoons
untoasted sesame oil
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1 teaspoon
turmeric powder (optional)
Directions
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Sterilize a glass jar with an airtight lid and completely dry. Wash & dry the baby mangoes. I like to submerge the produce in lukewarm water to which I add some vinegar. This takes care of any stray mold spores. Drizzle with 2 tablespoons of oil & shake well so that the oil coats the mangoes. Add the salt and turmeric powder & shake so that the salt sticks to the oiled skin) snap the jar shut with the lid . hake the container a couple of time each day for about 2 weeks. The baby mangoes release their moisture and this combines with the salt to create its own flavored brine.
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At the end of about 2 weeks, there will be sufficient brine to incorporate into a spicy sauce that the mango will be preserved in.
Drain off the brine into a blender jar. Combine the toasted arbol chile powder and the mustard powders and blend into an emulsion.
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Pour this sauce back onto the mangoes, taking care to coat the semi pickled mangoes entirely.Transfer the mangoes and the sauce into a dry sterilized glass jar. Pour the sesame oil to form a layer over the surface. Seal, and try to forget about it for at least a month, so that the mangoes can complete the pickling process in peace.
A biomedical engineer/ neuroscientist by training, currently a mommy blogger on a quest for all things food - Indian Palate, Global perspective!
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