Made on a terrace in Ajmer, one ceramic jar at a time
Raw mango, lemon, garlic and chilli, dried in the Rajasthan sun, mixed by hand with masala she still grinds herself, and rested in ceramic jars until it is ready. Nothing from a factory.
01 · Sun
Raw mangoes are cut with the seed husk on, salted with turmeric and laid out on a cotton cloth on the terrace. The sun does the slow work of drawing the water out, so the pickle keeps without preservatives.
2 days in the Ajmer sun before any masala
02 · Masala
Split mustard seed, fennel, fenugreek, nigella and Mathania red chilli are dry-roasted and coarsely ground every week. Grandma sprinkles it over by hand and tosses until every piece is coated. She does not measure; we wrote it down for her.
7 whole spices, roasted and ground in-house
03 · Oil
The oil is smoked once to take off the raw edge, cooled completely, then poured over. That is the glossy coat, and the reason the pieces keep their bite for months.
1 finger of oil above the pickle, always
04 · Jar
Piece by piece, with a dry steel spoon, into glazed Khurja ceramic jars that have been washed and sun-dried the day before. Ceramic does not react with the oil and keeps the pickle cool.
Khurja ceramic, glazed inside and out
05 · Tie it
The lid goes on, muslin over it and a cotton string around the neck. Then seven more days on the terrace, shaken every morning, before it is packed into jars for you.
[01] · The shelf
Every pickle comes in 250 g and 500 g glass jars. Want it the old way? Add a ceramic jar you can keep.
[02] · Grandma says
Always a dry spoon. One drop of water and the whole jar spoils.
— Grandma KamlaKeep the oil one finger above the pickle. If it drops, top it up with heated, cooled oil.
— Grandma KamlaShake the jar every morning for the first week. Don’t open it, just shake.
— Grandma KamlaPick mangoes that are hard and sour, the ones that squeak when you cut them.
— Grandma KamlaLemon pickle gets better with age. My oldest one is from 2019 and I won’t share it.
— Grandma KamlaNever shut a jar with a wet lid. Dry it in the sun first, like the pickle.
— Grandma KamlaLeftover masala oil? Mix it into gram flour for flatbread dough. Nothing gets thrown away.
— Grandma Kamla[03] · Pair it
Tell us what you’re eating and Grandma will pick the pickle.
[04] · Her kitchen
Grandma Kamla has made pickles on her terrace in Vaishali Nagar, Ajmer, since she was a new bride. Her granddaughter Riya started taking orders from friends in 2021; now three neighbours help on pickling days. Each batch is as big as Grandma can mix by hand, and when a pickle is sold out, it waits for next season.