Sooo….we went a little wild with some pickling experiments in our Mumbai office. Prajakta, our Test Kitchen Coordinator, loves a simple office lunch—rice, dal (lentils), and a spoonful of pickle on the side to zhuzh it all up. So, we made not 1, not 2, but 5 (!!) pickles with our spices so no meal of ours (or yours) is ever boring! As the official taste-tester, I can vouch for the deliciousness! Scroll to see ‘em all!
Indian pickles are very different from the pickles of the west, but they’re just as (if not more) delicious. While western pickles are soaked in vinegar, Indian pickles are slowly fermented in oil, salt and spices and often allowed exposure to sunlight over several days so they can get briny and funky. If you’ve been wanting to dip your toes in South Asian cooking without diving too deep into complex recipes, pickles (or achar as they are called in Hindi) are SUCH a great lil’ gateway. You’ll get to see/touch/smell/toast and roast whole spices like Aranya Black Pepper, Nandini Coriander, Jodhana Cumin and Bindu Black Mustard, and taste the deep flavor of ground spices like Pragati Turmeric, and Basiya Ginger. You’ll get to play with multiple ingredients, learn a touch of patience (a few days of sunny fermentation is everything here), and experience results that can elevate innumerable meals! You’ll essentially be opening a Pandora's box of low-effort-high-reward pickle recipes that’ll have you hooked.
For our experiments, we started with Nik Sharma’s Classic Lemon Pickle, featuring his beautifully tangy Achari Masala, Then, we got progressively crazier, levelling up spice with hot green chillies, boosting umami with fresh garlic cloves, making a super tangy shrimp pickle, and then going far in the other direction with a syrupy sweet raw mango pickle–find all the recipes here! Happy pickling!
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P.S. We have a whole section on chutney and pickle recipes straight from our partner farms across India and Sri Lanka in the Diaspora Spice Co. Cookbook (releasing spring 2026!). Sign up for the waitlist here!
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