Lemon & Lime Pickle with Ginger & Chilli

Making pickle is very easy, just time consuming in terms of chopping the fruit and waiting for the pickle to mature. It's much cheaper to make your own and once you do you'll never go back to store bought. The beauty of doing your own is you can control the spice strength and the overall flavour. This recipe is one of my favourites from many trials.
Start with roughly the same overall amount of lemons to limes. I like it slightly more lime flavoured so have added one extra lime to this batch.
Ingredients
6 or 7 limes (unwaxed or washed and scrubbed)
3 lemons (unwaxed or washed and scrubbed)
1 tblsp chopped fresh ginger
3 fresh red chillies, chopped
1 tsp dried chopped chillies
1 tsp coriander seeds
1 tsp cumin seeds
1 tsp mustard seeds
1/2 tsp nigella seeds
2 tbsp vinegar (any kind)
4 tbsp salt
1/2 tsp asafoetida (hing) for sterilising your jar
Method

Begin by gently roasting the dried chillies, coriander, cumin, mustard and nigella seeds until hot to the touch. Make sure you don't burn the mix or your final pickle will have a bitter flavour. Once the seeds become hot to the touch put the mix into a mortar and leave to cool.




While your spices are cooling, start chopping the lemons and limes retaining as much juice as possible. I like to cut the ends off the lemons and limes plus make sure there are no pips included. I know people who use the whole fruit, ends, pips and all so I leave that up to you. Put the retained juice with the vinegar into a jug and set aside. I like to cut each piece of fruit into at least 24 pieces. You'll find that once the pickle is ready to eat the pieces will be larger than when you first cut them and if you start with large pieces you'll end up with a pickle that's not as easy to eat. This is of course down to personal preference.

 In the pestle and mortar, grind your now cool masala mix. It's up to you how finely you grind your mix. I like a slightly coarse texture so don't grind the mix to a fine powder. Once the mix is to the texture you want, add the turmeric and mix in.

Chop the fresh chillies and the fresh ginger and set aside with the 4 tbsp of salt. Keep these ingredients separate.

Sterilise your clean jar by putting a small amount of asafoetida (hing) into a small frying pan and heating until the powder smokes. Place your jar over the smoke and let the jar fill with the asafoetida smoke, leave for one to two minutes. This is a very traditional Indian method of sterilising.

You are now ready to start layering all your ingredients. Begin with a layer of your masala mix, then add a layer of the fruit mix, add a few pieces of ginger and a few pieces of chilli, then a layer of salt. Continue in this way until all the mixes are used up. Finally add the retained juice/vinegar mix then seal the jar and leave it alone for 3 days.

On day 4 give your mix a good stir with the handle of a wooden spoon. Stir the mix every other day for 25 to 30 days after which time all the peel should be lovely and soft and all the flavours well developed. Any juices will also have thickened. If you are lucky enough to live somewhere with sunshine you can speed up the maturing process by placing the jar in sunlight for a couple of hours a day, make sure the jar is covered with a muslin cloth or a tea towel. Be patient, the end result will be worth the wait and the finished pickle can last for a very long time. It doesn't in my house as we eat it pretty quickly.
This is my fresh batch of pickle, made today so there's no photo of the final product. In 25 days or so I'll post a photo of the end result.