Sliced lemons cured a week with salt and turmeric, then finished with a tempered oil of mustard, cumin and fenugreek seeds, green chiles, garlic and ginger cooked into vinegar, sugar and chile powder.
Untested: not yet made in this kitchen. It is part of the collection’s pickled batch and is adapted from the source named in the Notes.
Ingredients
- 10 small lemons, preferably Meyer, quartered, seeded and sliced ¼ inch thick
- ¼ cup kosher salt
- 1 teaspoon ground turmeric
- ½ cup canola oil
- ½ teaspoon brown mustard seeds
- ½ teaspoon cumin seeds
- ½ teaspoon fenugreek seeds
- 12 small green Thai chiles or 6 serranos, halved
- 8 cloves garlic, thinly sliced
- 1 piece (2 inches) ginger, peeled and thinly sliced
- ½ cup white vinegar
- ½ cup sugar
- 1 tablespoon red chile powder or cayenne
Directions
Key ingredients
- Rub the lemons with the salt and turmeric in a bowl and pack them into a sterilized 1-quart glass jar. Lid it and set it in direct, warm sunlight by a window for 1 week, shaking it daily to spread the brine.
- After the week, heat the oil in a 10-inch skillet over medium-high heat and cook the mustard, cumin and fenugreek seeds until they pop, 1–2 minutes.
- Add the chiles, garlic and ginger and cook until golden, 4–6 minutes. Stir in the vinegar, sugar and chile powder.
- Pour over the lemons, reseal, shake to combine, and refrigerate 1 week to infuse.
Notes
Source Adapted from Smita Chandra, “Nimbu ka Achaar (Spicy Lemon Pickle),” Saveur (2014).
This replaces the old Pickled Lemons record The collection’s earlier “Pickled Lemons” had two different recipes run together with their quantities lost. The salt-cured half is already covered by Preserved Lemons - 1 and - 2, so this record now holds a pickle that finishes in vinegar. It is a hybrid, not a pure vinegar brine: a week’s salt-and-sun cure first, then a cooked vinegar, sugar and oil masala. A sourced pure vinegar-brine lemon pickle could not be found.
Storage Keep it refrigerated. The source says it keeps up to a year; that is the author’s figure, not a tested one.
Serving A condiment with naan and steamed rice.
The photo The photograph is Saveur’s own photo of Smita Chandra’s nimbu ka achaar, the recipe this one is adapted from.