Raw Mango Pickle- Quick and Easy Recipe

Freshly made and ready to eat Raw Mango Pickle is one of the most favorite condiments in an Indian meal.

Mangoes evoke so many childhood memories for me!

Mango season began early spring when the tree in our backyard would be covered with fragrant blossoms heralding the arrival of the this king of fruit in India ! Raw mangoes were available from April onwards and were used to make pickles and many seasonal foods. And the fully ripe mangoes arrived in all their glory in May, just as we began our school summer vacation. I literally ate the ripe and nectarous Alphonso mangoes by the dozen!

Starting in the spring, my Aai (mother) made a variety of mouthwatering pickles that were preserved for the year, in big pickling jars, called barni in Marathi. These are some of the tiny versions of those jars.

In April, Aai had a marker in the Hindu calendar as to when the baby raw mangoes would be perfect for her signature ‘Bharlya kairiche lonche’ where baby raw mangoes are cleaned, pitted and stuffed first with rock salt, left in the sun to marinate, drained,  the brine used to make the homemade pickle masala for stuffing the baby raw mangoes, then a thin masala poured over it with the mustard oil etc. You get the picture! It was a pickle that was made over 4 to 5 days, a laborious affair to say the least, but the aroma and taste of that pickle is still fresh in my mind after decades.

I wish I had inherited my Aai’s patience ! Even the ingredients she got to make the homemade pickle masala were very carefully chosen, including the asafetida or hing! All of that meticulous care  and her expertise contributed to the unforgettable taste of the pickle.

She then made several other pickles as well. The fresh mango pickle as well as the fresh vegetable pickle, were also my favorites as I did not have to wait for them to marinate. I could eat them fresh that day.

This quick and easy pickle I am sharing here is one of the fresh pickles I make here in the US. In my experience the raw mangoes I get in the Boston area are not as sour, nor do they have the crunch that I remember from childhood. But they are as close to homemade pickles as we can get here and I look forward to making and eating them often in the spring and summer months. As is the case in all Indfused recipes, this one too uses less oil than the commercially available pickles.

Enjoy with any meal! Do check out Indfused’s Crunchy apple pickle as well ! Both last for about a week in the refrigerator.

Love,

❤

Sandhya