West Indian
Lal Mirch Ka Achaar (Red Chili Pickle)
Lal Mirch Ka Achaar (Red Chili Pickle) is West Indian home cooking, eaten at lunch and dinner. On the plate it is the condiment. Below is what usually sits beside it, what it does and does not contain, and what else to cook once you have made it.
Ingredients
- 15 red chilies
- 1/2 cup mustard oil
- 2 tbsp coarsely ground mustard seeds
- 1 tbsp coarsely ground fennel seeds
- 1 tsp fenugreek seeds
- 1 tsp turmeric
- 3 tbsp lemon juice
- 3 tbsp salt
How to cook it
- Wash the red chilies and pat them completely dry, then slit each one lengthwise, keeping it intact.
- Mix the coarsely ground mustard seeds, fennel seeds, fenugreek seeds, turmeric, and salt in a bowl.
- Stuff each slit chili generously with the spice mixture.
- Heat the mustard oil until it just starts to smoke, then let it cool slightly.
- Pack the stuffed chilies into a clean, dry glass jar, and pour over the warm mustard oil and lemon juice so the chilies are fully submerged.
- Seal and set the jar in the sun for a few days, shaking it once daily, until the chilies soften and the oil turns deep red.
- Store at room temperature and spoon out a little alongside any meal.
Serve it with
A West Indian dinner is a plate rather than a single dish. These are the courses that normally sit beside Lal Mirch Ka Achaar (Red Chili Pickle), read from the same composition Dinejot builds a real meal from.
-
The dish at the centre
-
The cooked vegetable
-
What it is eaten with
-
Something cool and fresh
Safe at your table
Dinejot tracks ten allergens and tags every one of them by hand. Lal Mirch Ka Achaar (Red Chili Pickle) carries none of them. That is a checked answer rather than an ingredient list nobody read.
| Allergen | In this dish | Cook this instead |
|---|---|---|
| Peanuts | No | |
| Tree nuts | No | |
| Dairy | No | |
| Gluten | No | |
| Shellfish | No | |
| Eggs | No | |
| Soy | No | |
| Fish | No | |
| Sesame | No | |
| Coconut | No |
These tags are set by a person rather than inferred from an ingredient list, and they describe the recipe as written here. Read the labels on whatever you actually buy.
What it brings to the plate
Bands, not numbers. Dinejot does not weigh anybody's food, so it says light, moderate or hearty and stops there. This dish was read and set by hand.
- Calorie band
- Light
- Protein
- Low
- Food groups it covers
- Vegetables and Nuts and seeds
- How this was set
- Hand audited
When to cook it
Lal Mirch Ka Achaar (Red Chili Pickle) takes about 30 minutes from a cold stove to the table, and the cooking itself is a fair bit of work. It is eaten at lunch and dinner. Nothing in the calendar rules it out, so it is a year round dish.
Watch someone make it
Nothing loads from YouTube until you press play. Until then this is one still image, which is why the page opens as quickly as it does.
More to cook
From the same kitchens
More cooking from West India.
Does the same job on the plate
Swap any of these in when you want a meal the same shape.
Cook this with your whole family
Dinejot plans breakfast, lunch and dinner as whole plates, built around the cooking you call home and filtered for the allergies at your table.
Meal suggestions support your goals. They are not medical advice. Please ask your doctor about your family's health needs.