A recipe for anchovy pickle
and a round up of my Tooting food haul
Hello everyone, welcome to today’s edition of Yesterday’s Curry!
This week’s been a busy one with lots of ingredient sourcing, cooking and testing recipes. One of the main things on my to do list for a while has been to find a good brand of Kashmiri chillies for when I start producing my own pickles and Goan recheado masala. It turns out that importing them from India is no small feat and I am sadly not allowed to use ones couriered in from Goa for commercial purposes. It seemed like I’d hit a bit of a dead end until I found a packet in a little shop in Tooting that I hadn’t seen before. The main thing I noticed was the smell. These had a really lovely, fruity scent, reminiscent of the chillies I bought back from Margao market last year. I am hopeful for now and will report back once I start cooking with them!
Onto the next exciting purchase of the day and that was these Alphonso mangos. It is now mango season (yay!) and despite them being very expensive in the UK, £11 for 6 of these in Tooting was actually not half bad. Another week and they’ll be perfect but these were so lovely, sweet and juicy. I really want to make Mangaad (Goan mango jam) but right now these mangos are too good to use for cooking and are just getting inhaled within 30 seconds. Next, I’m going to get a box of Kesar, and then maybe after that I’ll get some to use for recipes.
Next up is this green chilli pickle recommended by my fellow chef pal Sohini (who incidently runs the best supperclub in South London - check it out if you haven’t been yet). What I love about this pickle is that it is fairly neutral in spice level. It’s salty and tangy with a fairly mild spice level which makes it extremely versatile and the type of thing you can just use a spoon of in various recipes. I used it yesterday morning to make a compound butter to use on toast with egg and it elevated my simple breakfast so much. I’ve been getting the egg ick recently, and this green chilli pickle just steals the show when you eat it like this. I was planning to share an asparagus tart recipe in an upcoming newsletter and I am already rewriting it in my head to include this pickle. This recipe, which you can find on my instagram would likely be good with any type of pickle, next I think I’m going to try it with lime.
A few other miscellaneous products that I got were wet tamarind, jujube pickle and curry leaves. I need a good quality tamarind for my Goan curry sauce and this one from Bangladesh seems like the good stuff. I much prefer wet tamarind to dry and the one I brought back from Goa last year had the same texture as this one.
This shop in Tooting had so many pickles and the Mauritian section had loads of really unique ones. After debating between bilimbi, starfruit and a few others, I went for jujube because I’m pretty certain I haven’t tried it before. I’ve only tasted a little bit on the edge of a spoon and it seems like it had a bit of an olive-y vibe. I’m looking forward to trying this one properly on the side of a fish curry. Curry leaves need no introduction, these are just for the freezer!
One of my favourite pickles is the bombay duck pickle from The Goan Kitchen in Margao and I was so sad when I finished the packet I brought back to the UK last year. I currently have a jar of delicious bombay pickle made by Mervyn, but I am nearly finished it so I was so excited to find bombay duck in Tooting so I can start making it myself.
I haven’t tried these tinned prawns yet, but am planning to make a pasta dish with these. One of my hyperfixation meals for the past few months has been the mob kitchen sausage gojuchang rigatoni and I have a feeling these prawns could be a great substitute for the sausage to make a creamy, salty, sweet and spicy number. I will report back once I’ve made this! Finally, is this date paste which I used in my upcoming anchovy pickle recipe. It isn’t overly sweet but has a nice mellow mollases flavour. I can see this working amazingly in Goan sweets - it could be great in dodol if I can’t source palm jaggery.
One of my new favourite shops is now Longdan in Elephant and Castle. I absolutely love asian supermarkets and could spend hours in them looking at all the packaging and unusual items you just don’t find anywhere else. I love Wing Yip in Croydon but I don’t live near it anymore so don’t get a chance to go very often. I need to dedicate a whole newsletter to a proper haul of Longdan but on this first visit, I got myself some dried anchovies and a cane vinegar to make a Goan pickle with.
Without further ado, below is my recipe for Goan anchovy pickle which I made at Sohini’s flat on Friday during a lovely cooking session we had. The video is up on my instagram.
Recipe:
Ingredients:
200g dried anchovies (any dried fish or seafood will work)
10 dried Kashmiri Chillies
About 100ml neutral oil
200ml vinegar - I used this cane vinegar I picked up but you can use malt, or any wine vinegar. Feel free to experient with vinegars just NOT balsamic!
6 large garlic cloves
1 inch piece of ginger
1 tsp cumin seeds
12 peppercorns
8 cloves
4cm cinnamon (cassia bark)
1/4 tsp turmeric
1-1.5 tsp salt (to taste)
3 tsp jaggery (to taste)
Method:
The first thing you need to do is soak the Kashmiri chillies in vinegar for at least 20 minutes until they soften slightly. This makes them easier to blend into the wet masala.
Once softened, add the chillies, vinegar, cumin seeds, peppercorns, cinnamon, cloves, turmeric, garlic and ginger to a small blender. Blend until you get a fairly smooth red paste.
Depending on the size of the dried fish you are using, chop into bitesize pieces - I cut my anchovies into thirds. Then, in a saucepan, heat up your oil and when hot add the anchovies and cook for about 5 minutes.
Add the red masala to the pan and stir everything together. Add a little more vinegar to the blender to swill out the remaining mixture and add to the pan too. Cook this mixture, stirring frequently for about 5-7 minutes.
Now you need to season it to taste. Start with salt, then taste. Then add a splash or so or vinegar and finally jaggery or brown sugar. Keep tasting until you are happy with the balance or salt, sweetness and tanginess.
Leave to cool and then store in a jar. Top with a little bit of oil to help seal everything and keep it fresh. The pickle can be eaten straight away but will be best once it has matured for a week or 2 in the jar.
If you make this, please let me know and I really hope you like it!
Until next time,
Emma xoxo