In a real pickle

MONITOR:WHAT ON EARTH do you do with a pickle? Enjoy it might be the obvious answer, but for Sanjay Vishwakarma, head chef at Rasam in Dún Laoghaire, Co Dublin, there is far, far more than that to be considered. It's all about balance, he tells me, but for now we are busy chopping and grating limes. I am standing in his kitchen, which is utterly spotless. I don't say this easily (many restaurant kitchens are not), but you wouldn't even know this kitchen served Indian food, it is that clean. Perhaps the tandoori oven gives it away, but not much else.

Then I round the corner and spices are spread out in bowls, along with limes and chillies, and in a minute we are in the thick of pickle-making. The spiciness of Indian food is something westerners often struggle with, and the further south you go in India, the more challenging this becomes. Not only do south Indians like their food with more chilli, they tend to spice things up more. They also like their food to be salty, a reflection perhaps of the hot, humid heat of the region. And so they like their pickles.

Not all Indian food is hot. Not all Indian food is very spicy. It is ridiculous to try to shoehorn this vast and varied continent under the heading of India, certainly when it comes to food. This is regional diversity at its glorious best.

Continent-wide, vegetarian dishes tend to be the most pickle-friendly. Their relative mildness allows the pickle to balance things out to the diner’s own preference. And so we grate limes, cut them in half, salt them and then mix with hot mustard oil and spices. The whole combination is left for a few days to infuse and then I sit to enjoy this pickle with a south-Indian inspired vegetarian thali. It is served on a huge silver-coloured tray with a myriad of small pots to be enjoyed first with bread and then with rice. But all with pickle.

The trouble is, the lime pickle is just so good on its own. As I eat more, it is quickly apparent that restraint is required. The mixture is spice-heavy, albeit in a light way, and comes into its own when combined with lentils, potatoes, various root vegetables and spinach. The flavours really start to work together and I am beginning to understand the balance.

Vishwakarma says you can pickle pretty much anything. The objective is less about reflecting the flavour of the ingredient and more about using its texture, or to be more precise, its transformed texture, to carry a whole plethora of spice flavours.

In pickle making, salt is key. In north Africa, they preserve lemons with heavy salting, the vertically split fruit stuffed with salt and then immersed in lemon juice for several weeks. You use the skin rather than the flesh of the lemon, which by this time has a tender, melt-in-the-mouth texture and a cured, marmalade-like flavour.

Sweet, sour, spice – all in balance, or rather an extreme of all, but when eaten in small quantities with other foods, then very much in balance.

Pickle making is very personal and the spice blends are unique to every chef. As I dig about in the spice mixture for our next pickle, this one made from chillies, I encounter mustard seeds, aniseed, onion seeds, turmeric, asafoetida and black salt, the latter an unrefined and spicy version of an ingredient we often take for granted.

Being in a pickle has taken on a whole new meaning. For a copy of either the lime or chilli pickle recipe, email info@rasam.ie.