RAW MANGO WATER PICKLE
TAKE 100 small tender green mangoes; 750 g rock salt; quarter kg small red chillies; 50 g fenugreek; 50 g mustard seeds; 10 g asafoetida.
NOW put the mangoes in a plastic bucket (or ceramic jar) together with the salt and chillies. Roast the fenugreek and mustard seeds and asafoetida separately in a frying pan and crush. Add to the raw mangoes. Keep the raw mangoes under heavy weight for around 10 days. Remove the weight and pot the raw mangoes along with the water that will have oozed out. Stored in an airtight container this pickle can last even for two years.
Note: I like my chepnim austere but you may jazz it up a bit if you wish. Whose recipe is this? I am sharing it courtesy a Peter De Souza from a chapter titled “Saving for a rainy day” in Food Stop, The Complete Goan Food & Drink Guide compiled by the hardworking Melanie Sequeira. It’s one of the best finds if you can find it today, I’m sure it’s gone into second and umpteen editions.
HEY friends, look at mango trees and grow more mango trees. Next stop will be mangoes ripe and Goa and the Konkan coast is a wonderland of mangoes, go study mangoes if you wish. Before I forget let me brief readers on the goodness packed in green mangoes. Fresh green mango is packed with good health – it’s rich in enzymes, in vitamin C, vitamin A, vitamin B6, vitamin K, plus there are mineral values of magnesium, calcium, iron and dietary fibre which detoxify the liver.
In Ayurveda green mango with honey and pepper is prescribed for stomach ache and better digestion, it is said to be good for hives, jaundice, blood disorders. Green mango helps improve blood vessel elasticity and increases formation of new blood cells, aids absorption of iron, decreases bleeding. Green mango is acidic…yes, but only moderately acidic enough to be considered neutral on the pH scale.
As usual a reminder, a little goes a long way, a lot may be troublesome! Do be careful when eating green mango skin though for it may be oozing sap and this may set your itching and inflamed. That’s all. Don’t shun mangoes green or ripe with a myriad colors – mangoes green will soon be followed by mangoes ripe season but that’s another story to write about. Goa as a mango state and the Konkan coast swears by hundreds of varieties of mangoes cultivated by mango aficionado farmers and why not! Everybody likes to eat mangoes be they poor or not so poor. Finally, botanically, green mango is Anthracothorax viridis!