218) SULTANA ORANGE PEEL PICKLE

SULTANA ORANGE PEEL PICKLE

A SIMPLE-TO-MAKE PICKLE SO TASTY, YOU WILL FEEL LIKE A SULTAN

Ingredients:

     1)    Peel of two oranges

     2)    Sultanas (dried sweet seedless green grapes) – 150 gm.

     3)    Hot green chilies – 2 Nos.

     4)    Tender ginger – ½ inch piece

     5)    Hot red chili powder – 1 teaspoon

     6)    Pickle powder – 1 teaspoon

     7)    Turmeric powder – 2 pinches

     8)    Vinegar – 100 ml.

     9)    Sugar – 100 gm.

     10)     Salt – 1½ teaspoons

To Make:

          Start on a sunny morning. Chop the orange peel to fine pieces. Peel the ginger and chop to powder-like bits. Discard the stems and cut the green chilies into thin rings. Spread the chopped orange peel pieces, the green chilies, the ginger and the whole sultanas thinly on a wide stainless steel platter or a tray and keep under full hot sunlight from morning to evening.

          Once cool, transfer the dried ingredients to a 300 ml. glass jar. Tip in the salt, the chili powder, the turmeric powder, the pickle powder, the sugar and the vinegar. Close the lid tightly and shake the bottle vigorously up and down. For the next 7 days, remember to shake the jar every morning and evening. Store in a cool, dark place.

          If you feel impatient enough to start eating, do so after the first 7 days. However, if you are inclined to relish the true gourmet taste of the pickle, please wait for 30 to 45 days when it gets fully marinated and gains a much softer texture.

          You will love this truly special, superbly delicious sultana orange peel pickle so much that you will buy or grow oranges more for the peel than for the juicy flesh. What’s more, you may even catch yourself ogling the orange peels that others casually throw away.

Enjoy!!!

Footnote:

          I have wanted to give you this recipe for a long time. I could not for want of a nice picture. We could not snap the photo, for the pickle would never last for more than a week. My mother starts spooning the pickle onto her plate from the second day saying “Ah! So good! So good!” and the jar is empty by the seventh. On the seventh morning, she starts telling me “It is finished. I want more!”. So this time, I managed to hide away a jar for a month and you got the picture and the recipe. Of course, my mother got the jar. So, be sure to make and to enjoy this fine pickle.