Oil Less Lemon Pickle

Lemon PIckle Without Jaggery

Lemom Pickle With Jaggery

My granny used to say older the lemon pickle without oil more is its medicinal value. Thus in her home and later in my mom’s home lemon pickle used to be stored in porcelain containers tightly packed and sealed. The container which used to open used to be at least a year old. Lemon pickle has its medicinal value only when red chilies are not added to it. I prefer my lemon pickle to be sweet, sour and hot. Oil is not used in this simple but tasty pickle. I love making pickles. For me working in kitchen is best stress buster and watching the reactions of my family members when they devour the food/pickle/cakes/puddings is the most joyous moment. This pickle requires very few ingredients and equally less time and labor.

Preparation Time: 30-40 min.

Maturing Time: 20-30 days

Servings: Makes 500 gm. pickle (Approx.)

Ingredients Required For Making Lemon Pickle:

• 30-35 Ripe Yellow Lemons (Medium Size) / 500 gm. Ripe Yellow Lemons
• 100 gm. Red Chili Powder / To taste
• 100 gm. Red Kashmiri Chili Powder
• 4-5 Teaspoons of Turmeric Powder
• 1/2 Teaspoon pure Asafoetida powder
• Salt to taste

Direction For Making Lemon Pickle:

• Wash and wipe the surface of lemons dry.
• Keep the cleaned lemons under the sun / fan for 30 minutes to make sure they are dry.
• Squeeze the juice of 10 lemons and keep the juice for later use.
• Cut the lemon rind left after taking out the juice from lemons, into pieces (I cut them to strips).
• Cut off little bit of top and bottom end, of the remaining lemons.(The end where stalk is attached and the opposite end).
• Cut the lemons to 4 pieces if they are medium size or eight pieces if they are big.
• In a bowl take:
• Salt
• Turmeric powder
• Red chili powder
• Kashmiri Mirch powder
• Asafoetida
• Mix the ingredients nicely
• Take all lemon pieces and pieces of lemon rind in a big stainless steel container and add the spices mixture to it.
• Mix nicely.
• Add lemon juice and mix.

Lemon Pieces With Speces etc.

• Cover the container with lemon and spices mixture with a muslin cloth and place under the sun for 10-15 days. Make sure the container is kept inside in the night time.
• The lemons will start changing the color and will start becoming soft.

Ready to be Botteled

• Put this partially matured pickle in a glass / porcelain container and place the lid tightly.

Pickle Bottled and Ready for More Sun Heating and Maturing

• Keep daily under the sun for 15 days more. Now the pickle container can be left out in night time also if it is kept in safe place. The cooling in night and heating by sun in day time does wonder to the pickle.
• After one month you can consume the ready pickle, but I prefer to keep it in my shelf for 2-3 months before I allow the pickle to be consumed. Because longer it is allowed to mature softer the lemon pieces become and the spices mix with the lemon pieces very nicely.

Matured Lemon Pickle After Three Months

Enjoy the oil free lemon pickle with stuffed paranthas / dal-Chawal / biryani …..

Tips:

• Use only stainless / wooden utensils to make pickle.
• Check the purity of all spices for purity they are the main culprit for the pickle getting spoilt. (If not pure)
• Make sure all lemons are yellow and unblemished.
• Dry the lemons properly else the pickle will go bad,
• Check the hotness of chili powder before adding. Each brand has different hotness. I prefer making my own chili powder from whole deseeded chilies to ensure purity.
• Do not use marketed asafoetida powder as it has maida in it and can cause the pickle to spoil. If you do not get pure asafoetida powder then omit it.
• Kashmiri chili powder is for giving color it can be avoided. In that case the color of pickle will be dullish.
• Make sure all containers and equipment as well as your hands are dry while machining pickle.

Suggested Variations:

• After two to three months when the lemon pieces are soft and the pickle is juicy 250 gm. finely broken jaggery can be added to get sweet and sour taste. I keep two containers one with jaggery other without jaggery to cater for the taste of family members.

Matured Lemon Pickle With Jaggery

• 50 gm. Ajwain (Caraway seeds) can be added after cleaning them. (Rub with cloth).
• 20-30 ml. of Vinegar can be added to ensure that in rainy weather the pickle does not spoil. I use apple cider if I it starts raining during maturing time (First one month).
• Deseeded, roasted whole red chilies can be added to the lemon and spices mixture. The juicy tangy red chili tastes awesome.  

Oil Less Green Chili Pickle/हरी मिर्च अदरक का अचार बिना तेल

Oilless Green Chili Pickle

This is one pickle which vanishes fast from the bottle as my whole family is very fond of it. I do not mind as it is very easy to, make and is very healthy. Green chilies have lots of vitamin C, Garlic, caraway seeds(Ajwain) are good for digestion and flatulence and again lemon is rich in Vitamin C and micro nutrients. The sour, hot and tangy taste makes it irresistible.

Preparation Time: 45 min

Maturing time: 7 days in summers

Serving: Makes 400gm. (approx.) pickle.

Ingredients Required For making Oil less Green Chili Pickle:

• 250 gm. Fresh Green Chilies
• 10 Lemons
• 10 Pods of Garlic (optional)
• 100 gm. Ginger
• 2-3 Teaspoons Mustard seeds (I use yellow mustard but any other will do)
• 2-3 Teaspoons Ajwain
• 2 Teaspoon Turmeric powder
• 2-3 Teaspoons Vinegar/apple cider
• Salt to taste

Directions for making Oil less Green Chili Pickle:

• Grind mustard seeds to coarse powder.
• Wash green chilies and remove the stalks. Dry them with a cloth and cut to small pieces.
• Wash and peel ginger. Dry under the sun to ensure all top moisture has evaporated.
• Cut the peeled ginger to small size pieces.
• Wash and dry the lemons. Squeeze the juice of lemons leaving two lemons for later use, and cut the lemon rind to long strips.
• Cut the remaining lemons to small pieces.
• Peel garlic and cut to long strips.
• In a stainless container take
• Green chili pieces
• Ginger pieces
• Garlic pieces
• Lemon and lemon rind pieces
• Ajwain
• Mustard seeds powder
• Salt
• Turmeric and mix nicely.
• Vinegar 
• Cover the container with the pickle mixture with a muslin cloth and keep under the sun for one day in summers and 2-3 days in winter.
• Transfer the mixture to a clean dry bottle and cover with the lid tightly.

Pickle mauring under the Sun

• Keep the bottle with the pickle mixture under the sun for 4-5 days and by the end of the week the pickle is ready.

Oilless Green Chili Pickle

Tips:

• All ingredients should be dry before pickling.
• Check for any rotten or stained part in garlic, chilies and ginger. It should be removed else the pickle will go bad.

Suggested Variations:

• If you wish to make this pickle in rainy weather then 20 ml. of vinegar should be added to the mixture along with other ingredients. (I use apple cider).
• 20-30 gm, Jaggery can be added to get the sweet, sour tangy and hot flavors.

Healthy least oily Tomato Pickle

Tomato pickle

Pickles make regular appearance in the dining table and are most welcome guests. They have an intrinsic property to make a most dull platter of food look enticing and change the taste to mouthwatering. We Indians are blessed with different variety of food because of the diversity in weather, culture and eating habits of people of different part of our country. Tomato soup, ketchup, sauce etc. are well known as frequently used form of tomato but tomato pickle? It was a surprise to me in late seventies, when I had tomato pickle at my friends place while doing Ph.D. and wondered how the lady converted tomatoes to such innovative yum tasting pickle have. Later when I got married tips from my Andhrite friends and habit of experimenting in the kitchen resulted in this less oily healthy pickle.

 I love having it not only with rice and chapatti but love  using it for making sandwich also. My family loves having curd and rice with tangy spicy Tomato pickle.

Preparation Time: 15 min.

Cooking Time: 45 min

Servings  500 gm. pickle.

Materials Required for Making Tomato Pickle:

• 500 gm. Red Ripe Fleshy Tomatoes

• 100 gm. Tamarind

• 100 gm. Jaggery

• 50 gm. Salt

• 25 gm. Red chili powder

• 1 Teaspoon Turmeric Powder

• 1 tea spoon Chana dal

• 1 Tea spoon Dhuli Urd dal ( Urd dal without green / black cover)

• 15-20Whole Red chilies

Spices for seasoning

• 50 ml. Cooking oil (Ground nut oil / sesame oil / soya oil / olive oil/ Mustard oil)

• 1/4Teaspoon Asafoetida powder

• 5-10 Kadi Patta (Curry leaves)

• 4 Teaspoon Mustard seeds

• 10 ml. Vinegar

Directions For Masking Tomato Pickle:

• Wash and dry tomatoes nicely.

• Cut tomatoes thin long pieces.

Tomato pieces for Pickle

• Take thinly cut pieces of tomatoes in a glass / stainless steel container and mix 25 gm. salt and 1 tea spoon turmeric powder in the tomato.

• If the pickle is being made in hot weather / summers then cut and mix salt and turmeric in night cover and leave overnight but if pickle is being made in cold weather / winters then cut and mix salt and turmeric in morning cover and leave for 24 hrs.

After 24 hrs of soaking Juices squeezed from tomato pieces

• Sieve the juices and squeeze the tomato pieces by pressing between the palms.

• Mix the squeezed juice to the sieved juice.

• Keep the squeezed tomato pieces under the s8un for drying on a stainless plate / plastic sheet / glass plate for 4-5 hrs. when the temperature is high ( 40 ^o C or more), 7-8 hrs. in winters when the temperature is 30^o C – 35^oC.

Tomato pieces kept under the sun for drying after squeezing the juices

• Clean the tamarind of the seeds and soak cleaned tamarind and whole red chilies in the tomato juices for 5-6 hrs.  under the sun.

Tamarind and whole red chilli soaking in tomato juices under the sun

• Tomato pieces will become semi dry and the tamarind will soak the juices of tomato and become soft.

Tomato pieces drying under the sun

Dried Tomato Pieces

• Blend the soaked tamarind and chilies to pulp along with juices. Keep extra juices aside.

Juice from tomato pieces , chilies and Tamarind pulp

• Take oil in a thick bottom wok (I always cook in anodized / non-stick wok / pans) and heat on high flame.

• When the oil is smoking hot lower the flame and add mustard seeds. Mustard seeds will splutter immediately.

• Add chana dal and urd dal and cook on low flame till touch of pink starts coming on them.

• Add 4-5 whole red chilies and kadi patta.

• Cook for 30 seconds.

• 

Seasoning getting ready for pickle

Add Asafoetida and immediately add semi dried tomato pieces.

Ready for Tomato pieces to be added

• Stir and mix spices and tomato pieces nicely. Cook with continuous stirring for 3-4 minutes on low flame.

Tomato pieces added to the seasoning

• Add the mixture of tamarind pulp and tomato juices.

Tomato juice left after making pulp of the soaked tamarind added

After 10 min of cooking 

• Mix nicely and cook for 3-4 minutes.

• Add

• Salt red chili powder

• Jaggery

• Mix and cook with regular stirring till all juices are absorbed and the pickle starts leaving the edges of wok.

• Add vinegar and mix nicely.

• Cook again for one minute with continuous stirring.

• Switch off the gas and let the pickle cool without covering the wok.

Pickle ready for bottling

• Store the cooled tomato pickle in a dry glass bottle.

Tomato Pickle

• Enjoy the Tomato pickle with Dosa/ Pesarattu / Idli / da-chawal / mutton or chicken biryan / Stuffed paranthas.It goes well with all vegetarian and non- vegetarian foods.

Tips:

• Do not dry the tomato pieces so much that they become hard.

• Remove the seeds and hard cover of tamarind before soaking in tomato juices.

• Preferably used fruit based vinegar rather than synthetic vinegar because fruit based vinegar has nutritional values.

• Pound /cut the jaggery before adding to the pickle it will dissolve faster.

• Always break whole red chili before adding to oil otherwise it may burst and cause accident.

• Tomato taken for pickling should be fleshier. Lesser fleshy and more juicy the tomato will require more cooking time and hard work.

• Jaggery, salt and red chili powder can be increased or decreased according to the taste.

• Always add red chili powder in small amounts and check the taste for hotness before adding all  said amount of chili powder. The grade of hotness for chili powder differs from one chili powder brand to other and homemade chili powder may have altogether different degree of hotness.

Suggested Variations:

• Peeled whole or sliced garlic can be added to the pickle just before adding the vinegar.

Ready to be bottled

• Grated 4-5 cm. piece of ginger can be added to the oil after adding kadi patta and cooked till the foam due to the moisture of ginger stops coming from oil. Then the semi dried tomato pieces can be added.

• Sugar / brown sugar can be taken in the absence of jaggery.