Amla, better known as Indian Gooseberry, is widely used in the Ayurvedic medicine system of India. Amla is extremely rich in vitamin C, having thirty percent more than oranges. It’s packed with many vitamins, minerals, tannin and other helpful nutrients. This herb is a very powerful antioxidant, preventing damage from free radicals that cause cell oxidation. Antioxidants are important for anti-aging and preventing diseases such as cancer, diabetes and heart disease. Amla also works well for inflammation. It is a good anti-inflammatory for joints especially. This potent herb is also used to reduce fevers, strengthen the heart, control blood sugar, treat urinary tract infections and improve eyesight.
Here a picture of Fresh Indian goosberrry.
The tree is small to medium in size, reaching 1–8 m (3 ft 3 in–26 ft 3 in) in height. The branchlets are not glabrous or finely pubescent, 10–20 cm (3.9–7.9 in) long, usually deciduous; the leaves are simple, subsessile and closely set along branchlets, light green, resembling pinnate leaves. The flowers are greenish-yellow. The fruit is nearly spherical, light greenish-yellow, quite smooth and hard on appearance, with six vertical stripes or furrows.
Ripening in autumn, the berries are harvested by hand after climbing to upper branches bearing the fruits. The taste of Indian emblic is sour, bitter and astringent, and it is quite fibrous. In India, it is common to eat emblic steeped in salt water and red chilli powder to make the sour fruits palatable.
There are many ways to make Amla pickle but I used to same recipe that I used to make the achar from frozen green Mango
- 10 oz of frozen Amla slices
- 1 fresh green raw mango
- 2 tablespoon of spice mix for aachar which is basically mix of salt, ground red chili pepper , and crushed mustard seeds and some crushed fenugreek seeds
- 2 table spoon of Medium hot ground chili pepper powder
- 2 teaspoon of salt
- Lime juice from 3 limes (depending on how tart you want your pickle as raw mango here in USA is not as tart as in India, however the frozen pack of raw mango was from India so the tartness is good in the frozen pack)
- 1/2 cup of vegetable oil (best to use mustard oil but it is not for everyone's palate, it takes a while to get accustomed to its taste)
- Wash and cut the raw mango in to small cube
- Take 10 oz of frozen amla slices from freezer and place them in a glass bowl mix with mango cube and microwave them for 6 min on high power (uncovered).
- Take it out of microwave and stir and place it back in microwave to cook for additional 2-4 min to desired softness.
- Take it out of microwave, let it cool.
- Add all the spices, salt and lime juice.
- Toss with a spoon so everything is well incorporated.
- Heat the oil in small sauce pan and pour hot oil over the spiced mangoes.
- Let it cool completely and then put it in a jar.
Hint:
You can have it out at room temperature for one to two weeks easily but if not consumed quickly you can store it in fridge.
Information on Amla source : http://www.herbslist.net/amla.html and Picture and more info on Amla as whole fruit courtsey of : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phyllanthus_emblicahttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Text_of_Creative_Commons_Attribution-ShareAlike_3.0_Unported_License
Rest of the Photos and Recipe by Surekha
