I have made many kinds of pickles, but making chili pickle was a very different kinds of experience, in terms of taste, flavor and type. It has become one of my favourite kind of pickle so far. Not only its very easy to make, but it goes with any kinds of food, as a relish or to enhance taste. I am thankful that I found this recipe from this youtube channel, which happens to be one of my favourite channel too.

I believe that this pickle can be made with any kinds of chili, like thai chili, naga chili, especially if you are a chili lover. However, I made this pickle with long thin kinds of chili which are not that spicy but has a wonderful chili flavor.

For this recipe, we need whole garlic, mustard paste, paach phoron, ginger garlic paste and of course Bangladeshi mustard oil.

First thing first, we need to wash the chili and pat dry them very well, so there’s no traces of water left. Because water will make the pickles moldy, thus minimizing the shelf-life.

Also we need to pinch off the end part of the chili, as chili tends to burst in oil while cooking. So to save both our eyes and face from bursting hot chili, we cannot skip this step.

Before we start cooking, we need to blend the mustard seed to a very fine paste. Also the mustard seeds need to soak in vinegar for about an hour so its easy to blend. Now we take half of the mustard paste and add chili,cumin, turmeric powder, ginger garlic paste, vinegar and salt and make a paste. We will keep this paste aside for later use.

Now come to main cooking process. In a big wok/pan, warm up some mustard oil and add paach phoron when the oil is hot.

When paach phoron starts to pop, we add some garlic cloves. We will not deep fry the garlic cloves, just until they get slightly fried.

So the garlic cloves are slightly fried, now we add the spice paste that we sat aside. We will cook the paste until the raw smells go away.

Now we are adding the chilies. First we add the half and stir them with spices, then we add the rest of the chili and repeat the same process. This way, it is easier to stir all chilies and coat them well with spices.

As you can see, the colors of chili already started to change from dark green to light. At this step, I will add some sugar. Don’t worry, it will not sweeten the pickle but will enhance the taste to far better.

When sugar are melted, we are going to add a bit more mustard paste. It will add a nice kick to the pickle.

After adding mustard paste, we need to check if it needs salt otherwise we add more. We have to cook the pickle until the chilies look deflated and changed color to grass green.

When cooking is done, we have to transfer pickles from the pan to a bowl and cool them down to room temperature. We need to do this step in order to stop burning the pickles in the hot pan.

We cannot consume the pickle immediately after making them, as they need to get “matured” before consuming. Here in the picture you can see how soft and mature the pickle looks from previous batch. The more it gets time to mature, the more flavorful pickle taste.

Recipe: Chili Pickle, preparation time: 10minutes, cooking time: 20minutes

Ingredients: Green Chili: 500g Garlic cloves: 18-20 piece Mustard Oil: 2 Cups (500ml) Paach Phoron_ 2 tsp Red Chili powder: 2 tbsp Turmeric powder: 1/4 tsp Salt: 2tsp Mustard paste: 4 tbsp Vinegar: 1 cup (250ml) Ginger paste: 1tsp Garlic paste: 1tsp Cumin powder: 1tsp Sugar: 4 tbsp

Instruction: 1. Wash the chili and pat dry with towel. Remove the stock and pinch off the end part and set them aside. 2. Make a fine paste of pre-soaked mustard seed with half of vinegar. In half of the mustard paste, add cumin, turmeric, chili powder, salt, vinegar, ginger garlic paste and set them aside. 3. In a big wok, add mustard oil and heat them in medium high flame. 4. Add paach phoron in the heated mustard oil. When they start popping, add garlic cloves. Fry them lightly. 5. Add spice paste and cook them until the raw smells goes away. 6. Add chili to the pan. Stir them to coat with spices. 7. Add sugar and cook until sugar is dissolved. 8. Add rest of the mustard paste to the pan. 9. Cook until the chilies look deflated and changes colour completely. 10. Transfer pickle to a bowl and cool them down to room temperature. The pickle is ready to consume after 2 weeks preferably.