Usha Prabakaran shares her best tips for anyone looking to dive into Indian pickles.
Usha Prabakaran is the author of “Usha’s Pickle Digest,” a compendium of 1,000 heirloom pickle recipes sourced from Indian homes over the course of two decades.
During the quarantine, she’s spent time making pickles from her garden’s citrons and mangoes and from home-delivered lemons, garlic, onions and gooseberries. She’s also working at “breakneck speed” on another encyclopedic compendium — 1,000 recipes for rasam, a tangy South Indian soup or broth. We asked Prabakaran, who lives in Chennai, India, to share her best tips for those looking to dive into Indian pickles.AdvertisementPickling can feel like a mystery to most, but almost all my recipes can be prepared in the average kitchen.
Indian pickling is all about salt, oil and spices: the more salt, the safer. Oil standing two inches over the pickle prevents oxidation, and spices, of course, add to the taste. Sometimes, [pickles] can be [brined] in tamarind juice, lemon juice, vinegar, whipped yogurt or sugar syrup. Prepping can often be harder than pickling itself. It’s important to be methodical: Get clean, dry spoons and jars, use sun-dried and home-ground spices, aim for organic vegetables for better taste and nutrition, salt correctly, and make sure you submerge the pickle in oil or vinegar to prevent mold.Buying fruits and vegetables is an art. The best guides are, as always, common sense, based on familiarity with each fruit or vegetable and its special characteristics.
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