Making Pickles in India

I love pickles. Like L-O-V-E pickles. I would eat them at or maybe even for every meal.

So I was sad when I found that the pickles here in India are mostly of the mango variety. So although both the tomato and garlic pickle I've been eating have been good, I have missed my homemade crunchy dills from back home. I'd even thought about making them, but I wasn't sure about finding all the ingredients.

So when I saw dill on a vegetable cart the other day, I slammed on my break (sorry Becky) and pulled my scooter to the side of the road to buy a bunch.

Really it was the only ingredient I lacked and I hadn't even found dry dill in the stores.

Also, I promised Achui I'd show her how I make them.


So tonight we went to Achui's place to make pickles.

And of course Achui fed us wonderful food. It was rice and lentils and mixed veg but it was the best rice and lentils and mixed veg I think I've ever eaten... no joke.

 So here's how you make pickles in India.

Find the smallest cucumbers you can. Then find something to put the pickles in. They don't really sell glass jars so you'll probably have to make do with plastic or recycled glass jars from some other product.


I found those lovely pink canisters at Easy Day (that's the store that's owned by WalMart) that match my tea pitcher and were on clearance. Score!

Oh, and you'll also need garlic, peppercorns, salt, vinegar, and water.

Now the instructions in no particular order.

First wash the cucumbers.


Then peel the garlic.



Then get your Indian friends to help you peel the garlic because they're way faster at it than you.



Then cut up the cucumbers into spears. These have a lot of seeds... hopefully they'll still be okay. It would be better if they didn't have quite so many seeds and quite so thick of skin, but, well, this is India.



In each container, put a few smashed garlic cloves, a few sprigs of dill, and around fifteen peppercorns.



Then pack in those cucumbers as tight as you can.

Then heat some water. You need one part salt, to two parts water to one part vinegar. Try to dissolve as much of the salt as you can.

Wait for the brine to cool, then poor it into the pickle canisters.

Then let them sit in the fridge for a couple of days, or someplace cool and dark if you don't have a fridge (a problem here in India).



Then eat and enjoy.

I really hope these turned out well. I guess we'll see when we get back from our trip to Himachael Pradesh.

We leave tomorrow and we'll be visiting quite a few cities including, Nahan, Chandigarh (actually in Punjab), Shimla, Palampur, maybe Bir, and Dharamsala.

I think Becky will really enjoy getting to see some of the countryside outside of Dehradun but we'll miss our friends Achui, Achon, and Achan. We'll be back in time for Diwali and we're looking forward to spending some more time with them.







Okay, so this is the Hindu National College. It's close to the hostel and apparently you can rent it out for weddings.



That's what this is.



I know because we stopped and asked some people. They said there were around 1,500 guests! Wow! There was even a bounce house.

The people we stopped invited us to join them, but we were already late getting back to the hostel so we declined. As it was, we ended up having to park the scooter on the "road" (yes, those quotation marks are intentional and used correctly) and climbing over the fence.

This is India.