Malay Pickles
Malay pickle is known as Malay achcharu. Malay pickle is originated with the Malaysian population in Sri Lanka, believed to be from Indonesia and Malaysia during the Dutch and British ruling time, but now it is a permanent dish at ceremonies in most countries. It is a popular dish in Sri Lanka. This is one of the delicious Sri Lankan food that is unique to the country. Malay pickle is a dish that contains sweet, sour, and spicy flavors.
Malay pickle is a bright and colorful dish because of using a variety of ingredients. It has distinctive and powerful taste. Due to having different ingredients, the Malay pickle provides different flavors and textures. This dish mainly uses Vegetables, Spices, Dates, and Vinegar. Also, this dish is able to attract to the main dish.
The Malay pickle is stored in a large glass container and a refrigerator.
Pickling is one way of preserving and improving the shelf life of food by either anaerobic fermentation in brine or immersion in vinegar. This is an ancient food preservation technique. Most vegetables can be preserved by pickling like cucumber, cabbage.
exploratorium describes that there are two methods of pickling. The first one is preserved in vinegar. It is a strong acid that few bacteria can survive. The second method is soaked in salt to encourage fermentation.
Malay pickles can be stored in a clean and dry glass jar and keep at room temperature. When you make this recipe you should make sure everything is free from moisture, including your hands and processors, etc.
The Main Ingredients of Delicious Malay Pickles
- Vegetables
- vegetables are used to get brightness, colorfulness, and different flavor to the dish. Mainly use carrots, shallots but you can add also cucumber.
- Dates
- Dates have a natural sweetness. So this ingredient uses to give a sweet flavor to the pickle. It is blended with spices to make gravy. Dates are a good source of nutrients. They are rich in soluble fibers. And also a good source of vitamins and minerals like potassium, magnesium, zinc, vitamin A and vitamin K.
- Spices
- The spice taste comes from the spices like pepper, chili powder, mustard seeds ginger, and garlic.
- Vinegar
- Mostly, coconut vinegar is used for the Malay pickle. Vinegar is used in the preservation process. It helps to extend the shelf life by fermenting.
This is a very famous dish at ceremonies. Malay pickle is served for special functions, gatherings, family parties. Rice recipes like Rice and curries, Biriyani, Ghee rice, Fried rice, Nasi goreng are completed with this delicious side dish.
Malay Pickle
Ingredients
- 200 grams Capsicum
- 10 Shallots
- 2 Carrot
- 3 Green chilies
- 150 grams Dates
- 5 Garlic
- 2 Ginger
- ¼ cup Vinegar
- 3 tbsp Sugar
- Tomato sauce
- 2 tbsp Mustard seed
- 1 tbsp Chili powder
- pepper
- Salt
Instructions
- Cut thinly capsicum, red onions, green chilies, carrots, dates, garlic and ginger.
- Add the spices into the blender.
- Add few dates into this spice mixture.
- Add vinegar to this mixture.
- Blend the spices and dates together.
- Add the rest of the dates to a pot.
- Add some vinegar to soak the dates.
- Let it boil in low heat.
- Once it boils add grinded paste to this.
- Let it boil well while mixing.
- Add tomato sauce into this.
- Then add sugar and pepper to it.
- Mixture is ready.
- Turn off the heat.
- Then add salt.Add carrots to the mixture(gravy) and mix well.
- Boil on low heat.
- Next add capsicum and chili and mix well.
- Then add onions.
- Mix well all the vegetables to coat the gravy.
- Close the pot and place for at least day.
My favorite side dish