My Favorite Recipes Collection: South Indian Lemon Pickle

Certain food facts are universal. This one, I am talking about is of condiments, pickles and relishes. One has to have a specific palate for it, you either love it or hate it. So this recipe is for those who love Indian pickles. Most of the time the our taste is associated with nostalgic memories of childhood. In India there are so many regions and just like all the Indian cuisine the pickle are of typical of each region and state, they taste and made differently in each region. I grew up in North , my mom and dad were from west coast of India and all the restaurants carry typical North Indian an south Indian Cuisine. Needless to day I love all nicely made pickles with good flavor. My love for pickle started with Ugly fruit sweet and sour pickle which was typical of Kutch region (Bijora) Then when we moved to MP and UP, I love grew for certain North Indian pickles, like mango, stuffed red chili pickle. This one is a typical south Indian pickle which I love, especially when accompanies my soul food rice and yogurt which was my baby food.

Preserved lemon or lemon pickle is a condiment that is common in the cuisines of Indian Subcontinent and Africa. Diced, quartered, halved, or whole lemons are pickled in a brine of water, lemon juice, and salt; occasionally spices are included as well. The pickle is allowed to ferment at room temperature for weeks or months before it is used. The pulp of the preserved lemon can be used in stews and sauces, but it is the peel (zest and pith together) that is most valued. The flavor is mildly tart but intensely lemony. Historically, pickling was an affordable and practical method of preserving lemons for use long after their season and far away from where they are grown. Early 19th-century English, American, and Indian cookbooks give recipes for lemon pickle.I have been looking for a good South Indian Lemon pickle recipe and with trial and error with combination of my mom's recipe and my recipes, I finally came up with this one which is close to what I used to like in India. Of course the Lemons are much different in Indian than here but this one is very close to what I used to have in my early childhood years in India.

My mom always used to have plain lime pickles in it brine of salt, lemon juice and turmeric in our house which she would make it and keep it in a large glass jar for weeks until they became soft. I had taken food preservation classes in India, believe it or not when I was 11-12 years old and one thing I remember from the class that any savory preserves that has 20 % of salt and sweet preserve that has 70% of sugar will not go bad for ages.

In India they also may aged black lemon sweet lemon pickle which they swear by relieving any kind of stomach aches this one had lot of different spice, different salts and sugars (jaggery, brown sugar and raw sugar) but that is another story. Here I will present to you typical South Indian savory lemon pickle which they serve in restaurants with south Indian meals and is always available in each South Indian household.

What you can do, with this pickle is cut the lemons quarter or 1/8 slices in salt and turmeric and keep in sun everyday in glass jar for at least 4-5 weeks. Then you can take out some pieces and add spice and do tempering as needed to enjoy fresh pickle every week. However I made the entire batch at once because I wanted to share with some of my family and friends who share my passion of this pickle. Here is the entire recipe but you can cut it down to 4-9 batches and adjust the the spices and oil proportion accordingly to the amount you are making.

Ingredients:

For pickling lemons in brine:

18 + 2 (for juice) lemons
1 cup Kosher Coarse salt
1 tablespoon of Turmeric powder
1/4 -1/2 cup of powered cayenne pepper (use Kashmiri chili powder from Indian grocer) (I said 1/4 -1/2 cup based of desires spiciness)
1/4 cup of lemon juice from concentrate.
1/4 cup of roasted and coarsely powdered Fenugreek/methi seeds
1/4 cup of coarsely powdered yellow mustard seeds.

(In local Indian grocer you can get packets of already mixed coarsely powdered Methi and mustard seeds, it is easy to use these rather than trying to make these at home, I used 1/2 cup o this rather than using 1/4 cup of each)

For Tempering:

1 and 1/2 cup of oil (I used Canola oil)
1 teaspoon of Asefoetida (hing)
1 tablespoon of black mustard seeds
Sprig of fresh curry leaves
1 teaspoon of turmeric powder

Method:

Wash and wipe the lemons and let them dry on a kitchen towel to make sure there is no water.
Chop and slice 18 lemons into small 1/8 small bite size pieces and keep the two aside for lemon juice.
This is the most painstaking process is taking all the seeds out of lemon pieces as the lemons you get here has tons of seeds embedded in depth of their pulp.

Make sure all the seeds at taken out as this may make the pickle bitter and not a good feeling when you bite into a lemon seed when enjoying the pickle.
Squeeze the two lemons and take the juice out and strain it to take all the seeds out.
In a large bowl, place all the lemon pieces and add salt and turmeric powder and lemon juice and mix well.
I also added 1/4 cup of lemon juice from concentrate for extra brine.

Mix well.
At this point you can just leave the lemons in the big bowl or put them in clean dried glass jar and cover it with cloth and put it in sun every day for 10 days to 2 wks (yes, need patience and sunny days).
Stir and mix everyday 2-3 x day.
Keep away from rain drops or drizzles and any water splashes.

After about 2 wks, the skin of lemons would be quite soft and the salt would have drawn a the juice from the lemons.
Now these are ready for tempering.
As I said earlier, you can make the entire batch at once which I did as I wanted to share with my friends. Or you can make them in small batches the divide the spices and oil accordingly, this way you can enjoy the fresh pickle every week.

Transfer the pickle lime in a bowl.
Add chili pepper powder, Fenugreek and mustard seeds powder. Mix well.
Heat oil on stove, when oil is hot add mustard seeds and when these crackle add asefoetida and turn the heat off and then add curry leaves very carefully, and 1 teaspoon of turmeric powder.
Mix well and let the oil cool down before adding it to the spiced pickle for best red tint color.
Or you can add hot oil to the spice pickle but I feel that color is much brighter when you add cooled oil.

It is up to you, if you are making small amount it does not matter but for the large amount you may want to cool the oil.
Mix well and refill in to the glass jars.
It is ready to eat but if you like you can put the jar in sun every day until the lemon pieces become more softer .
This pickle should keep for long time at room temp but if you don't consume it much then, you can put the jar or jars in the fridge.