Gongura Pickle

Gongura Pickle is one of the famous dish in South India, mostly in the State of Andhra Pradesh. This pickle is made from the green leaves of Roselle plant and can be stored for a few weeks.

This instructable describes how to make Gongura pickle

The Roselle plant, popularly known in India as Gongura is from the Family Malvaceae, and known as Hibiscus sabdariffa in Botanical terms. There are two varieties, a red stemmed and a green stemmed. The red stemmed plants are very sore where as the green stemmed ones are mild in taste. Here you can see the pictures of green stemmed Roselle plant with flowers, seed buds and green leaves used in pickling

• Cut the stems of the Gongura plant with garden shears. The plant will regrow vigorously, so no problem in cutting the stems.
• separate the green leaves from the stems. You can discard the stems.
• Wash the collected leaves in clean water.

Dry the leaves in the sun or in the shade. If you dry in the sun the moisture in the leaves get evaporated soon and the leaves get dried in a day. In shade it may take a few days for the leaves to dry. The completely dried leaves will be about 1 to 1-1/2 cups.

• A tablespoon of Mustard seeds
• A tablespoon of Fenugreek seeds
• 10 to 15 Garlic cloves
• A tablespoon of cooking oil
• A pinch of Asafoetida powder
• 12 to 15 dried red chilies
• Salt to taste

This is a guideline only. You can increase or decrease the ingredients as per your taste.

• Heat a frying pan over medium fire
• Add the cooking oil to the heated pan
• Add all ingredients mentioned in the previous step to the heated oil.
• Stir well till they are properly cooked

• Add the dried Gongura leaves to the ingredients in the pan
• Stir and mix well. Keep the flame low and cook till the color of the leaves change and the leaves will not be sticky while stirring.
• Transfer the fried mixture from the pan to a metal plate and allow it to cool

• Transfer the cooled Gongura mix into a mixer-grinder jar.
• Grind the mix for about 4 to 5 minutes. Turn over the mixture using a spoon from time to time so that the mixture is ground evenly
• Remove and store in a separate bowl.

Now the ground Gongura pickle needs to be tempered for long time storage

• Heat a pan over medium fire
• Add about half a tablespoon of cooking oil to the pan
• When the oil becomes hot add a teaspoon of mustard seeds mixed with broken Black gram lentils
• When mustard seeds start to crack, pour this over the Gongura mix in the bowl

Our Gongura pickle is ready

You can use the Gongura pickle as side dish with any food you like. The sour Gongura leaves mixed with other ingredients tastes heavenly.