Rose Apple Pickle Recipe

in #steempress4 years ago (edited)


Rose apple or as we locally call it "Chamabakka" is a fruit that never made into the market for sales. It just grows in your backyard or other places mostly as a volunteer plant. But they taste really good, with a not-so-sweet-not-so-sour taste.

It is normally eaten raw and sometimes with a pinch of salt. To me it is a nostalgic food that reminds me of Kerala. I think there are many varieties these days and are grown mostly in tropical weather conditions.

I also saw it is called Java apple, and I prefer calling it rose apple because... well, that doesn't matter here. But, rose apple on Google search shows this one in the search results. So, let's go with Rose apple!

About the recipe, I am not a great cook but this one is something I learned during this lockdown. Me not being a cook meaning the recipe is not going to have exact measures or empirical ones, but you still can make it.

Over to the recipe now.

Alright, Step 1:

First, we need to clean these fruits. Put them all in a tub of water and don't keep them for too long there. Since they are grown in the houses normally without any fertilizers, you don't really need to worry much about using a vegetable washing liquid for this.

Here is a little tip to clean it easily. They have this black little hairs in between that well created with the four edges. Our aim is to take them out. Water helps with that and you can use something with a pointed edge like a knife or even pull it with hands.

Sometimes, little black worms also stay inside those wells. So, you need to carefully remove all of those from there. Once you remove it, wash it in the water again.

Step 2: Cutting Them Into Pieces

Usually, there will be three seeds inside the fruit. There are seedless varieties too these days. But, the ones I have shown in the pictures have seeds in most cases. They are the ones that taste better in my opinion.

You can cut them into five pieces to have a balanced size. First, pluck the bottom part, which will leave you with this round upper part. And then, cut this round one into four pieces.

You get pieces like the ones in the last picture. If you notice, you can see many small black hairs there form that well. That is there because I did it!

Step 3: Fry The Rose Apple Pieces

The next step is to fry the rose apple pieces in oil. The goal is to make it soften without being too moist. This is why we don't wash them after cutting it into pieces. You don't need to deep fry them but just keep it there till it becomes a fleshy colour.

You can see they lose the colour like this. Once it turns to this fleshy colour, take it out of the oil and keep it another container or switch of the flame.

We were using the same pan which is a big deep metal pan. We were going to make the rest of the ingredients too in it, so we kept it in another container.

Here is a closer and no filter colour of the pieces after frying for them.

Step 4: Preparing The Ingredients For The Pickle

There are only a few additional ingredients to make this pickle.

  1. Sesame oil
  2. Asafoetida
  3. Fenugreek
  4. Chilly
  5. Ginger
  6. Garlic
  7. Curry leaves (optional)

The first ingredients to prepare is Asafoetida and Fenugreek. Pour some sesame oil into a frying pan and fry those two ingredients until they turn brown like this.

Asafoetida expands in the oil to these big chunks and the fenugreek sees turn brown. Take them of the flame and keep it to cool for some time.

We need them powdered but not like the fine powder. You can use a blender to do this but we always use this stone mortar and pestle and it gets the job done.

crush both these ingredients together using this mortar and pestle. You get something like this.

The next ingredient is red chilly. It looks like this, the dried ones. They are not very hot and we are actually adding it just for the flavour I think. You can use two or three of them. Cut them into two.

Our last ingredients are ginger and garlic. Since it is a pickle you can take as much you like. Cut them into thin pieces or if you like large ones cut the garlic in half. It is always better to have ginger in thin slices.

Step 5: Frying The Ingredients

Once we have all the ingredients ready to go, add a good amount of sesame oil into a hot deep frying pan. Add ginger and garlic slices we have prepared along with the chillies (and a few curry leaves if you like them).

Once all of them turn brown, add the crushed mix of asafoetida and fenugreek seeds. Now it is the turn to other spice powders. There are only two others, chilli powder and turmeric powder.

I am not giving a specific quantity because each chilly powder store bought varies in their hotness. You need to add a generous amount since the rose apple pieces get a slight sweet taste after it softens.

After adding both these powders, the mixture is going to look really red. Keep the flame low and don't keep it like that for a long time, it will burn the powders.

Step 6: Add The Rose Apple Pieces

The next and final step is to add the fried rose apple pieces into the pan. Give it a good mix and that's it.

Tada, you have your pickle ready. They look a little rosy and tastes delicious. No, it is not spicy hot as it looks. The little sweetness of the fruit balances it out.

Step 7: Storing In A Jar

We normally keep pickles in a jar, glass ones mostly. There is one thing to keep in mind while storing pickles in general and that is to have the oil above the ingredients, always. Otherwise, it will catch fungus (or is that bacteria, I'm not sure but it spreads on the top for sure).

Also, adding vinegar helps in staying them for longer time. That is it, you have the tasty rose apple pickle stored up. We usually have it along with rice. It stays good for a few months too.

Other than making a pickle out of it, I think these rosy-red fruits tastes good when eaten raw too. Or, sprinkle a little salt on the raw fruit, it tastes better that way too.



Posted from my blog with SteemPress : https://elsaenroute.com/rose-apple-pickle-recipe/
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Ohh wow, I didn't know we can prepare pickle from rose apple, good to know. Thanks for sharing