Garlic Pickle

My husband is a Garlic lover. He adds garlic in all possible dishes. I do like Garlic, but definitely not as much as him. This pickle which he often makes is the best one I like with garlic. I asked him whether I can include this in my blog with due credits. He granted permission, he usually doesn’t let out the secret of his recipes. The truth is he doesn’t know to explain ;). So I stood beside and asked lot of questions and recorded the recipe. Actually I confused him a lot in between.. Tats a different story.

Now back to the recipe.

This is certainly a versatile recipe. The ratio of Garlic and black channa is purely your choice. Channa mainly adds the volume and adds a different taste to the plain pickle.

Ingredients:

·         Garlic Pods – 1 cup (With or without peeling the skin)

·         Black Channa / Chickpeas / Kondai Kadalai– ½ cup

·         Water – 1.5 cups nearly.

·         Hing / Asofitida – ½ tsp.

·         Chili powder – 1 tbsp  (Make it according to your taste, this is normal)

·         Gingly oil – 3 – 4 tbsp

·         Mustard seeds – 1.5 tsp
·         Lemon juice from a big lemon.

·         Salt to taste

Preparation:

Choose the garlic which has very small pods. Not the big ones. These will be apt for pickles. Separate the garlic pods and rinse in water well.  We peeled the skin, but you can also skip peeling part but wash it well.

A type: No soaking chickpeas

Wash the black chickpeas well. Add water cook it for about 10 minutes in medium flame. The chickpeas should not get cooked very soft. It should only be half cooked.

B type: With Soaking chickpeas

Soak the chickpeas overnight or at least for 5 hours. Discard the water. Rinse the chickpeas well and 1.5 cups of water. The water level should be just with the level of chickpeas.

Method:

Add the chili powder in chickpeas + water mixture. Please adjust the chili powder according to your taste. What I have mentioned here is with normal spice. Also you have to check what type of chili powder you are using, based on that, change the quantity of chili powder.

Add the Garlic pods and salt and mix it well.

Now cook in the pressure cooker in sim flame for 15 mins. You need not wait for any whistle. Just cooking for 15 mins should be enough.

Once the pressure is released, add hing and lemon juice and give it a mix. Keep this aside. If you have peeled the garlic, at this stage the peels will be seen here and there on the surface of the cooked mixture. Just ignore them. You need not take them out.

In a kadai, add gingely oil, once heated add the mustard seeds and let it splutter. Add it along with the oil into the pickle and give a stir.

Once cooled, transfer it to a clean and dry glass bottle.

The pickle holds good for 2 weeks if refrigerated. The shelf life could be more also, but it gets over soon in our house, so I am not very sure how long it can be kept.

Make sure there is enough oil, here oil and salt are the preserves.

Just to show the content.. i removed some of the floating oil. Oil is must for shelf life.