An Invitation to Indian Cooking - Madhur Jaffrey [98]
I saw my grandmother make this pickle just once. It took five servants, the ten women of the house, and my grandmother two whole days to do all the grinding, cutting, and stuffing. Then, as the pickle matured, my grandmother would walk the length of the storeroom every day, shaking the large crocks stored in several neat rows. Every month the limes needed to be stirred by hand. Not every hand, antiseptically clean though it might be, was allowed inside the crocks. According to my grandmother, the chemistry of most hands would cause the pickle to rot. It needed a very “special” hand, and in our household she had decided that this hand belonged to Ishri, my grandfather’s personal servant. So this small wizened gentleman, and he alone, was allowed to push his gnarled hand into each crock and give the pickles a “swish.” My grandmother must have been doing something right because she was the only lady in the neighborhood who made this pickle successfully. All others who tried it and who, unfortunately, did not have the valuable services of Ishri, ended up with various varieties of fungi! And when my grandmother died and her valuables were being parceled out, her famous lime pickle was also carefully distributed among selected relatives. Those lucky enough to get ajar treated it with great reverence because, by now, it was supposed to have not just taste but medicinal and even magical qualities!
The recipes for most chutneys and pickles are usually handed down from mother to daughter, each family group specializing in its own particular varieties and styles. The result is that different families will serve you completely different sets of relishes. There are now a few companies that produce and bottle relishes, but at the moment they have not quite succeeded in tearing the Indian housewife away from her own home efforts. Some of these bottled relishes are available in American specialty stores. You will have to taste and check them out for yourself. If you like very hot pickles, I will recommend one particular brand to you. The firm of Har Narain Gopi Nath has been in the pickling business for decades. (Even my grandmother bought their red chili pickle, though she bought no other.) They now sell their pickles in this country. I would recommend only their stuffed red chili pickle. It is, as I said, very hot, so just eat a pinhead with each morsel!
I have, very arbitrarily, I confess, divided relishes into three categories—chutneys, pickles, and “others.” “Others” does not seem very dignified or very exotic, but you will begin to see my problem once I get to “others.” Meanwhile, let me start with chutneys.
There are so many different kinds of chutneys—sweet chutneys, sour chutneys, sweet-and-sour chutneys, salty chutneys, hot chutneys, cold chutneys—the list could go on and on. The ingredients used in these chutneys can include tomatoes, ginger, onions, garlic, tamarind, bananas, mangoes, raisins, coconut, fresh coriander, fresh mint, lime juice, yogurt, vinegar, sugar, etc. Chutneys can be preserves—that is, they can be bottled and kept indefinitely, like Sweet Tomato Chutney, or they can be made fresh daily, like Tamarind Chutney with Bananas or Fresh Mint Chutney with Fruit (see the following recipes). In our home we had a special woman who came in daily to grind the spices. When the spices were done, her second daily task was to grind the fresh green coriander chutney which we had at every meal.
Chutneys are generally served in small nonmetallic bowls if they are to accompany a meal. Sometimes, however, they are used as a sauce to go over hot or cold foods, such as in Fried Eggplants with Tomato Chutney.