Smell, Salivate, Savour!

 Dear Reader,

I wish you could somehow eat this blog, or at least smell it. For the present you’ll have to make do with a visual, but even that may tickle your salivary glands!

Your blogger cooks stories, and delectable dishes, too. He can cook Sambalpuri pakhal, ambil, khada-bhaji-nalita-munga saag, and a soupy mutton curry low on spices and a perfect accompaniment for rice. If Michelin stars were awarded for kitchens in Sambalpuri homes, this blogger could win a star or two.

Alas, his culinary talents are hugely underutilised, since spouse permits only occasional entry to the kitchen where she rules. If guests are coming home for a meal, she imposes prohibitory orders, and the kitchen is out of bounds for me. For good reason, since she is an accomplished cook.

But when she goes to town for shopping, I enter the kitchen to do what I want before her return, and our cook watches with unconcealed amusement as to what I hope to achieve during my brief rule.

Four days ago, while buying vegetables from Kripa Barve’s road-side stall a hop away from our home, I noticed big raw mangoes, and asked, what’s that for? For pickles, she said. Forty rupees a kilo, and fifty if you want me to cut it to perfect pieces and deliver it to your home by the evening. She sent her husband, the courier, to deliver a kilo of nicely diced green mangoes.

For achari masala, Chandrakanti’s You Tube video is my favourite. Last year, I had tried it for moringa sweet pickle, and I was happy with the result. Refreshed my memory by once again playing her video. Alas, most of you can’t benefit from it since it is in Sambalpuri; maybe someday I’ll translate her recipe into English, after obtaining her permission.

To make sweet mango pickle, I watched a video or two, but decided to do it on my own. Took me about 30 minutes including preparation of the masala. Then I put it in a glass bowl, borrowed from spouse with promise not to break it and return it clean and sparkling, and put it in the sun with mouth covered with a white cloth. After three days, the diced pieces have released the moisture, and soaked in the spices and jaggery, and the aroma wafting up when I stir the bowl to turn over the pieces is mouth-watering. Ready to eat, here is how it looks now:

 

Sweet mango pickle made with jaggery and spices.

A close-up.

I wish my readers could sample the sweet mango pickle I have made. I got in my family four marketing professionals but they have better things to do than package and courier pickles made by papa.

Don’t feel dejected, for I am keeping a small bottle apart for you in case you come visiting, and upon proof that you have read all my blogs, I promise to serve you a piece from this limited-edition pickle made with lots of love.

Keep salivating till then!

***