Prep Time:10 Minutes
Cook time: 45 Minutes
Ingredients: (Base)1. 4 cups fresh strawberry chopped
2. 2 cups tamarind paste (Soak the tamarind in water and use the thick paste)
3. 1 tsp salt
4. 1 cup brown sugar or jaggery. You can put more or less based on your liking of sugar.
5. 1/2 cup vineger as preservative
6. 1 & 1/2 cups mustard or extra virgin olive oil.You can use any other oil too.But pickle tastes great with mustard oil.
Optional :
1. 6 or 7 garlic cloves or 1 tbsp garlic powder
2. 2 Bay leaf
3. 1 tsp ginger powder
4. 1 tsp cumin powder
5. 1 pinch of black seeds (roasted)
6. 1 tbsp dark mustard seeds (slightly smashed)
7. 1 cinnamon stick
8. 2 tsp chat masala powder
9. 2 pinch of green cardamom powder or 4 whole cardamom
10. 1 tsp red chili powder if you want hot and spicy.
11. 1 tbsp fennel seeds (roasted)
Instead of using number 5,6 and 11 ,you can use Patch puran whole spices (Roasted).
Preparation:
Noooooooo, this time you don't have to cook it in the microwave.Cus strawberry is very soft and gentle.
1.Heat a nonstick cooking pan with oil (do not use any silver colored steel pan)
then add all the ingredients including strawberry and tamarind.
2.Cook it for 45 min. in a medium to low heat
until everything turns out into dark brown to black.
3.Stir the gravy occasionally so that it does not get burned or get sticked in the pan while cooking for 30 to 40 minutes.
4.At one point the water will evaporate and it will look glossy.After it gets dark brown and smell is all around , let it cool down for 2 hours and pour it in a glass or plastic jar.After cooking you can discard bay leaf and cinnamon stick .
Enjoy and have fun.
P.S The reason why I put the optional ingredients is that many people donot like the smell of various spices.If you want ,you can skip any of the optional ingredients.But if you put all the spices in the pickle , the pickle will turn out really good.