Winter special pickles

December is the month when juicy lemons are available cheap, so it's mandatory to make pickle. So are green chilies.

Chili pickle This recipe is from a book called 'Hamkhas Paaksiddhi' by Jayashree Deshpande which was gifted to me by my Aai when my daughter was born. I often refer to this book. I took 250 gram green chilies, the normal ones, not the very hot ones. Washed, dried them and then chopped into small pieces. Heat a small tadka pan, take 2 tbs of oil, add one tbsp methi seeds, remove, then switch off the flame. Add 2 tbsp asafoetida powder to the oil and stir well. Heat half a cup of water and let it cool. Also heat half a cup of oil and let it cool. Add 1/4 cup mustard dal or split mustard, 1 tbsp turmeric powder and 1/4 cup of lemon juice in the mixer jar and make a paste. Keep adding the cooled water gradually and keep running the mixer. Stop when you get the heady smell of the mustard and the mixture has turned frothy and light. Add this to the lemon pieces. Add the methi seeds/asafoetida powder. Add half a cup of lemon juice and half a cup of salt. Add the cooled oil. Mix well. Transfer to a clean dry glass bottle. Stir it once a day for a week. It takes about a month to get the perfect taste. This is a favourite in my family to eat with dosa, amboli, thalipeeth, paratha, bread, etc. A quicker version of this involves grinding the chilies also with the mustard dal. Then it's ready in a week. I keep this in the fridge. It might spoil especially in Mumbai like humid weather.

Lemon-Amla pickle This recipe is a jugad one, using whatever I had at home that day. It has turned out be super delicious though. I took about 6 lemons, juice of which was used for the Chili pickle. Then I took 3 juicy lemons. Chopped all of them in 8-12 pieces each, removed ALL seeds and kept aside. Added 6-7 green chilies and grinded these together roughly. You can make it as fine or as rough as you like. Grated 3 Amlas and one long piece of fresh turmeric and added to the lemon mixture. Added about half a cup of sugar and salt. Mixed everything well and then kept the mixture in the sun for about two weeks. This recipe is totally flexible, you can adjust the salt, sugar, heat as per taste. Or make the pickle only with lemons. Trust me, it will taste great. Mine is just too good, perfect with curd rice or khichdi. Have gifted to a few friends and they have loved it. This gets better as it matures, can tell from the one I made last January. These last long, the lemon pickle tastes better as it gets older.