Aaam Tel (Mango Pickle) — Recipe by Pritha Dutta

Pritha Dutta, a home cook who also offers some of her condiments under the brand-name Pri-Serves, had suggested this recipe.

 

 

Ingredients
  • Raw mangoes
  • Panch Phoran/ Panch Puran/ Five Spice Mix
  • Cumin seeds (jeera)
  • Fennel Seeds (mouri)
  • Dried Red Chillies
  • Salt to taste
  • Mustard Oil
  • Glass jar
  • Turmeric (optional) — find why in the notes section below

Method

 
  • Sun dry mangoes for a couple of days.
  • For 1 kg of mangoes, take about 2 tbsps of Panch Phoron, 1 tsp each of Jeere & Mouri and 2 dried Red Chillies.
  • Dry roast the spices and grind to a coarse powder. Now smear it all over the mangoes that are sliced keeping the peels and even the seed.
  • Add salt.
  • Now put the mangoes inside a glass jar. The jar needs to be at least 8-10 cms empty from top.
  • Now heat Mustard Oil and let it cool down completely. Pour it over the mangoes so that they are covered with the oil. The jar should be 5-6 cms empty from the top now.
  • Cover the mouth of the jar with a muslin cloth and secure with a dori (rope/ string).
  • Now sun this jar for 7-10 days.
Note: I do not have a large space to sun mangoes. To make the process easy, I first sliced the mangoes; smeared with salt and turmeric. For the spices to stick to the mangoes swirled in a little mustard oil. Mixed well using hands. Then I sunned this, instead of sunning the mangoes directly. Rest of the process I followed as is.