Roasted Cucumber Pickle

దోసకాయ కాల్చిన పచ్చడి

This is a delicious, aromatic pickle made by roasting cucumber on direct flame. Yellow cucumber is used for this pickle. But I tried this pickle with green cucumber which turned out equally delicious.

Ingredients:
• 1 Cucumber (I used green variety)
• 4 or 5 Green Chilies
• A small amount of Tamarind
• Salt as required

For Seasoning/Tempering:
• ½ tsp Mustard Seeds
• ¼ tsp Cumin Seeds
• ¼ tsp Bengal Gram (Pachi Senaga Pappu, Chana Dal)
• ¼ tsp Black Gram (Minappappu, Urad Dal)
• Few Curry Leaves
• A pinch of Asafetida (Inguva, Hing)
• 1 tsp Oil

Preparation:

Wash cucumber and wipe dry. Roast this on the stove directly on low flame until the skin becomes roasted just like in the picture below. Keep aside to cool.

When cucumber becomes cold, peel the skin off and chop it into small pieces.

Heat a little amount of oil in a pan and roast green chilies well. Then add these chilies to a blender along with tamarind and grind well.

To the above mixture add the cucumber pieces and grind into a smooth paste. No need to add water as cucumber already contains water in them. Add salt as needed.

Finally it’s time for seasoning. Heat the rest of the oil in a pan and add mustard seeds. When they pop, add cumin seeds + dals + curry leaves + asafetida and sauté well. Pour this seasoning on top of the prepared pickle and mix well.

Enjoy this delicious pickle with rice as well as chapathis.

On a different note, I would like to thank dear Shobha, a sweet blogger who passed me some wonderful awards. I will make a separate post about it soon as I have to select 15 bloggers according to the award rules, which is a bigger task for me :) Thank you Shobha for sharing these awesome awards with me.