Gooseberry Pickle

Pickling is an art! And since summer is here, gooseberries are available aplenty. Here is my recipe of gooseberry pickle which I got from my maid - Mrs. Gracy Mathachan , who used to run a small scale pickling unit years ago. I have used a variety of green chilly called 'kandari' ; feel free to omit it or just use chopped ordinary green chilly in its place.

Ingredients:
Gooseberry - 1.5kg
(opt) Green Chili - 1 cup
Gingelly / til oil / nallena - 1 cup
Mustard seed - 1 tbsp
(opt) Ginger - 4 tbsp
Curry leaves - 5 sprigs

Powders:
Salt - 7 tbsp heaped
Chili powder - 6 tbsp heaped
(if not using green chili, add 2 tbsp more)
Sugar - 2  1/2 tbsp
Turmeric powder - 1/2 tbsp
Asafoetida powder / kayam - 1 1/2 tbsp
Uluva / fenugreek/ menthayam powder - 1 tbsp

Vinegar - 1/3 cup
Coconut oil - 1/2 cup


Steam gooseberry in a large vessel. Do not let water touch the berries. Just steam as you would do idly or dhokla.  If you use the pressure cooker, steam until one whistle and turn off flame.
Cool, deseed and break into pieces.

Heat the Gingelly oil in a thick bottomed vessel and splutter the mustard.
Into this add the ginger, green chili and curry leaf. Give one good stir and reduce flame. (get ready for some explosions)







Mix all the powders together and increase flame to medium high. Tip the powders, all in one go, into the oil. Stir continuously even when you sneeze! DO NOT STOP STIRRING.








The raw smell of the chili powder will go in about a minute. Now reduce flame and add the vinegar. Stir well.









After one minute, add the goose berry and start mixing. Come on, work those muscles.









Once the gooseberry is evenly coated, and heated through, add the coconut oil. Turn off flame. Mix well.





Cool. Stir intermittently.
While cooling do no close the vessel completely with a lid as the condensed water vapor might fall on the prepared pickle.

Store in clean dry glass jars. This pickle stays fresh for upto a year.