Tuesday 19 March 2013

Chunda (Hot sweet and sour mango pickle)

Chunda






This pickle is very easy to make . It's a traditional Gujarati recipe which is common to many Indian households.
In India this preserve is made in a long process, the mango  and sugar combined is left out in the hot sun to naturally dissolve the sugar to make it syrupy. then the other ingredients are added to make the chunda. This pickle goes great with a savoury flat bread called Thepla (which I will be making tomorrow )
As we don't have heat like they do in India and flat roofs where we can go and dry our ingredients etc, I have a great recipe here which uses the same ingredients but is done very easily on the stove. It tastes exactly the same :)

Ingredients:
1- 2 Raw green mangoes ( hard)
1/2 tea spoon turmeric
2 tea spoons salt
2 tea spoons red chili powder
1 cinnamon stick
3 cloves
2 cups of sugar
large pinch of cumin seeds (roasted)

Preparation Method:
Peel and grate mangoes ( grate on large side of grater) and.
add to a pan.
Then add the salt ,turmeric, chili powder, cloves and cinnamon stick and mix well.
Let the the mixture sit for 15 minutes.
Then add 2 table spoons of sugar at a time and mix till dissolved .
Put the pan on a medium heat and stir often until the sugar turns syrupy . After 4-5 minutes bubbles will start to appear on the surface. Remove the pan of the heat and let it cool completely.
While waiting for the mixture to cool, add whole cumin seeds to a dry pan and and roast on a medium heat until they get slightly darker in colour ( be careful not to burn them)
Crush the seeds to make a coarse (not fine) powder and add to the mixture and mix well.
Pour the mixture ( cloves and cinnamon sticks too) into clean dry air tight jars and store in the fridge or cool dry place.
This pickle will last for 1 year( great eh) :)
Enjoy with Thepla, rotis, anything you wish really!

Note: It is absolutely crucial that you do not over cook your mixture or the sugar will crystallize later .

2 comments:

  1. Hi, nice recipe. How long should it take to stir the sugar in? And does the cooking process (on the heat) take only 3-4 minutes.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hi Alec , Thanks for your comment. If you add two spoon fulls of sugar at a time it should dissolve pretty quickly and the salt will help the process. The whole mixture should only be cooked for maximum 5 minutes , if cooked longer it'll turn into hard candy. I hope you try this recipe, if you do I'd love to hear how it turned out :)
      Best wishes.
      Sayj

      Delete