Gunda Pickle – Cordia obliqua or clammy berries pickle (Gunda Keri nu Athanu) Cheat Recipe
(Gunda is a kind of a berry with a very sticky stone in the middle). I used the ready made Jalpur Achar Mix to the add to fresh Gundas. My recipe for making gunda pickle using home made spices is here. Nothing beats mixing and grinding your own spices as they always taste great but if I find any good spices mixes I like to share that information as everyone likes to make cooking easier. Indian Food is never complete unless it is accompanied by the extras like pickles, chatni, raitaraita, papad, lassi etc. It’s believed that these foods help to balance the taste of food on your plate.
Author: Mina Joshi
Ingredients
20-25fresh gunda
½cupready achar mix (I used Jalpur Spice Mix)
1tblsfennel seeds
½ cupooking oil (I used sunflower oil)
1tspturmeric powder
2tspssalt for cleaning your hands
Instructions
Wash the gunda well and remove any stems left on the berry. Traditional gundas used to prepared by hitting a pestle on them and splitting them halfway and removing the stone. My mum used to leave her gundas whole and filled them with spices but I prefer halving them and adding the spice mix to them. It’s a lot easier plus I don’t always want to eat so much pickle. I tend to cut the gunda in half and remove the stone using a knife dipped in salt. Salt helps to remove the stickiness so after cutting a few gundas, just dip your fingers in salt and rub them together before rinsing them under water. (You can also use gloves when cutting the gundas if you like)
Once all the Gundas are halved – transfer them to a mixing bowl. Add the fennel seeds to the pickle mix and add them to the halved gundas. The pickle mix I used has all the ingredients necessary for making various pickles.
Heat the oil in a saucepan until it reaches a smoking point and allow it to cool until its lukewarm. Once cool, add it to the pickle mix. I have added only half a cup of oil but you can add more if you wish. The oil helps preserve the pickle for longer.
Leave the pickles in the mixing bowl for a couple of hours and then transfer them to a sterilised bottle. The pickle should be ready to eat in two days.