Stuffed chilli pickle/ Bharwa lal mirch achar

Stuffed chilli pickle/ Bharwa lal mirch achar

One day, a dear colleague brought this pickle/achar to work. It looked scary- pickled chillies??? But they were really AWESOME!! I knew I had to make this. After so much searching online, I could not find anything that looked exactly the same. So I did the mix and match. Another problem was sun drying. Even though we have plenty of sun here, there is too much dust also. So I decided to go for oven drying as suggested in this site for lemon pickle.

http://www.indiacurry.com/chutney/classiclimepickle.htm

Wash the peppers and dry with a clean cloth. Cut the stalk part out and remove the seeds. For long peppers, you can split the side. Removing seeds is also optional. If you love the heat, let the seeds in. Let the deseeded peppers dry in a single layer under sun or in a 100°c oven for 30 minutes. If oven drying, keep the oven door an inch open and use a glass dish. 

Heat a heavy bottom pan over very low heat and toast all the whole spices for about 5 minutes. Let cool and grind coarsely in a coffee grinder. Mix in all the remaining ingredients except the peppers and oil. Add 3 tbsp. oil into the spice mix and combine. Stuff this mixture into the peppers. Arrange the peppers in a glass container. Pour the oil on top. Oil should just cover the peppers. Some suggest to just roll the stuffed pepper in oil. But for me, it was too spicy that way. (Yes, I did try). Besides, the seasoned oil is a bonus!!! Use it for other recipes to enhance the flavour.

Sun dry the pickle for a week. I did oven drying. For that, heat your oven to the lowest setting. Keep the oven door open for about an inch. Heat the uncovered pickle for 45 minutes. Switch off the heat and take out the pickle after 30 minutes. Repeat this for at least 5 days. The hot, spicy pickle is ready to be eaten now! (If any spice mix is left, mix it with some cut up chillies and pour the oil on top and sun or oven cure just for a day)

I see endless potential for this pickle. Serve this with rice the traditional way or spice up your sandwiches or burgers the Indian way. This pickle truly gives you a blast of Indian spices. We loved it!!