In a pickle

At the vegetable market the other day I managed to find a heap of rather out-of-season and battered Indian gooseberries, nellikai in Tamil, or amla as they are more familiarly called. They were a little more bruised than I normally would have accepted, but they were available, which made it perfect timing for me to be able to play with them while I was still trying to get my blood sugar elevated and my nerves into some kind of unfrazzled state. I got a few, more than enough to experiment with and enough to allow for wastage, if that was the route I had to follow. And I gloated just that wee bit as I carted them off, with all my other goodies, to the car. Once home, I stored them carefully in the vegetable bin, while I decided just what I could do with them. I thought about the various alternatives I was familiar with and then chose the one I had not really dealt with before – chutney.

But that was left for another day, since I was already feeling the effects of the morning’s wander. Sharp bursts of rain punctuated a day of brilliant sunshine and confused all of us – did we bung the clothes into the dryer or leave them to steam gently on their own? Should the fuzzy acrylic car blanket that Small Cat snuggled in be aired, or should it wait until the rain had indeed gone away? Should I work on the morning’s shopping, or think sweet thoughts of dull work routines being avoided instead? Having managed the beans and the spinach, the methi and the corn, eaten a delicious omelette stage managed by Father and feeling self-righteously satisfied with the day’s chores, I faded into a wonderful siesta.

But the question of the amla remained. I went through a phase a few months ago where my doctor and I decided that my system needed a little Vitamin C boost. Instead of popping pills - which is generally anathema for me – I decided to take the natural route and find it via everyday foods. It was not citrus fruit season, so an alternative had to be found. I found it. My friendly neighbourhood grocer had large bottles of amla juice, which I stashed in the fridge and sipped a small espresso cupful of every morning, my face and mouth puckering with the sour stab that woke me up far quicker than coffee or strong tea could ever do. I persisted in this through four bottles, then gave up, not because it tasted so bad – which it didn’t, really – but because the friendly neighbourhood grocer ran out of his supply of amla juice.

The sourness of the Indian gooseberry can be intense, tongue-burning, blister-inducing almost. Nibble on the slick, waxy, pale-green skin and your mouth becomes suddenly assaulted by a splash of tartness, especially when the amla is a particularly juicy one. The morsel slides its way sharply into your stomach and can bring on a twinge of acidity if you do not have any internal upholstery bolstering you. But the pleasure comes thereafter, with a sip of cool water – you are left with a wonderful sweetness that bathes your tastebuds and swamps you in a more-ish feeling. And, even after cooking, the amla still manages to muster up that special magic.

The next morning, inspired by various ideas about amla and a strangely graphic dream in which my mother’s familiar nellakai urga made its presence felt for some completely mysterious reason, I set out to clean and process the fruit. It was certainly tart – a couple of splashes in the eye and I was weeping my woes to the world. A tiny taste and I had to eat some sugar to un-pucker my lips. And all the small bites that Small Cat had taken of my fingers and hands were stinging wildly as I cut my way into my precious amlas. Finally the deed was done and I bunged the cut fruit into the goblet of the blender and gave it a good whiz, pulverising all heck out of the round-edged, hard segments, making them a coarse-grained powder-paste that sizzled madly in the pan. I had already tempered lots of oil, asafoetida and mustard and methi seeds in a heavy bottomed pot and threw in the crushed amla, along with some red chilli powder, turmeric, salt and, for luck, a little pepper. It sizzled and simmered, steamed and spat, finally settling into a deep golden orange flecked with black and brown and letting out a sweet-sour-spicy fragrance that had my button nose twitching happily.

We ate some of it with dinner and it was not as good as the stuff my mother made, but passable. Certainly worth all the effort of the process of getting there.