The golden looking one in the first photo is basically just a ‘copy’ of my favorite store bought one with almost same ratios of ingredients. Ingredients available here. the only thing I did besides this was to roast the fenugreek and mustard seeds.
The other, darker looking one is a more ‘freestyle’ with about 300g of cut chilies (I used a Serrano style one and some birdseye for heat) about 30g of cumin seeds, 30g of coriander, 30g of fenugreek seeds, 100g of dark mustard seeds, 20g of fennel seeds, 30g of ajwain and a big teaspoon of asofetida. I roasted all the spices, mixed it with 4 tablespoons of pure mustard oil and the juice of 1 lemon.
Both of them are with about 5-6% salt.
Man these sound delicious. I love Indian style pickles, and these would be a great way to inject a good amount of heat and spices into any dish. The high salt content is probably good for using it as a seasoning in dishes.
Just to test my memory a bit… Ajwain is essentially caraway, right?
Ajwain is Trachyspermum ammi or Bishop's Weed it's not as sharp as caraway which is slightly more 'minty' in flavour where to my taste Ajwain is more citrus in flavour if that makes sense.
In Fiji the Indian community use it in samosa dough and in India it is commonly used in breads -when it's roasted it takes on amazing flavour complexity
Try and get the real deal if you can
5-6% salt.
wow that's really high, do they taste salty?
Yeah, I usually use 2-3% for something like sauerkraut but here since I was using oils and such I wanted to be on the safe side. It doesn’t come across as too salty, I think the chilies, spices and oils take some of the edge off. And since it’s a very spicy condiment you use small quantities at the time so salt being high is not a big problem for my palate at least :)
cool, thanks
This picture alone cleared up my sinuses
it is v.mild and sometimes more mustard-y
although my pov is indian
Looks so tasty!
Yum!
Looks delish
Thanks :)
Ooh, care to share a recipe?