Ingredients:
- 20 lemons (thinner the skin the better)
- 1/2 - 3/4 cup salt
- 2 cups dry red chillies
- 1/4 cup mustard seeds
- 1 tsp methi seeds
- 1” stick turmeric or 1 tsp turmeric powder
- 1/2 tsp asafetida
- wash and dry lemons.
- Squeeze juice from 5 lemons.
- Cut the remaining 15 lemons. (each lemon into 16 pieces). Place it in a bowl and keep aside.
- Dry roast all the spices one by one. First dry roast dry red chillies till crisp over a low heat. Then dry roast mustard, methi, turmeric and asafetida together. Do not burn the spices, else the pickle will taste bitter.
- Allow to cool down to room temperature.
- Put all the spices in to the blender and grind to a fine powder along with salt.
- Add the spices to the cut lemon pieces, add lemon juice and mix well.
- Transfer the pickles into an airtight glass container/porcelain container. Mix once a day with clean spoon for about a month. Cover and keep. Your pickle will be ready in a month.
- You can refrigerate the pickle after about a month if needed.
- While making the pickle, make sure all the bowls, jars, blenders, knives, cutting boards and frying pans are dry. Even a single drop of water will ruin the pickle.
- While serving the pickle, make sure to use clean spoons. The spoon should be very dry.
- The best option is to transfer a small quantity of pickle in a separate small jar inorder to avoid accidentally using wet spoon and spoiling the whole preparation. It is easy for serving also.
- The pickle will be salty initially but blends together gradually as time passes.
