This is my most favourite pickle recipe so far. I love garlic and I love pickle. No wonder I would love when two of them are combined – Garlic pickle.

This recipe I got from another amazing Bangladeshi cook Rumana. Her garlic pickle recipe is full proof, fantastic and super tasty that you must try to make someday.

We need a quite a few ingredients but fortunately most them are easily found in the kitchen. Perhaps for tamarind, you need to go to a Indian grocery store. Yes, we need a ton of garlic too!

So I have peeled almost a kilo of garlic. However, not all cloves of garlic sizes the same. So I took only the bigger cloves (first two in the picture from the left) and did not use the smallest one. Also I poked a hole in the biggest clove. This has done to ensure through cooking of garlic. By the way, it took me only four hours to peel and poke all the cloves 😥 but I enjoyed the whole time by watching Shawshank Redemption 😀

I ground white mustard with coffee grinder and set them aside.

One of the most important step for this recipe is to prepare every ingredients and keep them ready by your side. It is because you have to cook very quick as we are not using any water. This recipe is cooked entirely with oil so the ingredients tends to burn.

To start, I added a load of mustard oil in a big wok and let them heat in medium temperature. We don’t heat them very high as it will change the colour of oil and burn the other ingredients. When oil is warm enough, I added 15-20 pieces of dry red chili. You can adjust the chili as per your taste.

When red chili got puffed, I added all the garlic to pan.

As you can see in the picture, once I added garlic to oil, it starts to bubble. It is very normal to bubble when you cook with mustard oil.

Now I am adding ginger paste.

After adding ginger paste, I am adding all the dry ingredients like turmeric powder, chili powder, salt and coriander powder. Since I am not using any water, I have been continuing to stir them, so the ingredients don’t get burned.

Now I am adding white vinegar and mustard powder.

After adding all the dry ingredients, I am adding tamarind paste. As you can see, adding tamarind stops the bubbling, as it contains water. But I have been stirring so it does not get burned.

Now I am adding sugar. Adding sugar will make the consistency thickened.

Adding half crashed fennel seed.

The whole process, from heating the oil to adding last ingredients fennel took exactly 20 minutes. We need to stop cooking when garlic stays little harder like in the picture. If we continue to cook more, all the ingredients will get burned and garlic will get very soft, which will ruin the taste and consistency of the pickle.

Another important tips for making any pickle, is to take them out from heat and cool them down in a separate pot. Since it is very sensitive to heat, if you leave them in the heated pot, it continue to get cooked and thus changes the taste and color.

So I transferred the pickle in a pot and then let them cool dowm to room temperature, without covering. If you cover, moisture will get trapped inside and make them moldy.

So, after cooling down the pickle in room temperature, I put them in glass jar. It will be ready to eat after 15-20 days. If you have sunlight, you can keep in the sun, but then don’t cover with lid, just cover the top with a cloth so the moisture don’t get trapped. If you don’t have sunlight like me, just put them in dark place and wait until its ready to eat!

Recipe: Garlic Pickle Cooking time: 20min

Ingredients: Garlic – 800g (big cloves only) Tamarind Paste- 500g / 2 cups Mustard powder – 2 table spoon Salt – 3 table spoon Turmeric powder – 0.5 tea spoon White Vinegar – 3 table spoon Chili powder – 3 tbsp Pach phoron – 1,5 table spoon Coriander powder – 2 table spoon Ginger paste- 1,5 tea spoon Dry red chili- 8-10 (As per taste) Fennel seed – 1,5 tea spoon Sugar – 400g (or as per taste) Mustard oil – 750g /3 cups

1. Peel all the garlic and poke a whole in all big cloves. 2. Heat mustard oil in a big wok and add pach phoron and dry red chili. 3. When red chilies are inflated, add all garlic to pan. It starts to bubble but keep them stirring. 4. When garlic are little toasted, add ginger paste. 5. Now continue to add all the dry ingredients like turmeric, chili, coriander,mustard powder, salt and continue to stir them. 6. Now add vinegar, tamarind paste and white sugar. Keep them stirring. 7. When it starts to bubble again, add fennel seeds and transferred them in a separate bowl. 8. When the pickles cooled down, put them in a glass jar and keep them for 10-12 days.