Homemade Jujube Pickle | Kuler Achar

Sun-aged jujube (kul), sugar, cold pressed mustard oil, cumin seed, ajwain, coriander paste, bay leaf, dry red chilli, fennel seed, black pepper, salt, and our home spice blend.

What is not in it

• No vinegar or added acid
• No chemical preservative
• No artificial colour or flavour

What you will taste

Sweet first. Then a gentle chilli warmth that builds for a second or two and settles. The sourness of the fruit closes it off, which is what keeps you going back for another spoon.

It sits closer to a sweet chutney than to a fiery mustard oil achar, so it suits people who say they do not really eat pickle.

One batch a year

Kul has a short season and no substitute. We buy the whole batch during those few weeks, wash every fruit and rest it in the sun for a few days, until the skin just starts to wrinkle, before it goes into the pot. When the jars run out, the next lot is the following winter.

Whole fruit, seed in

The fruit goes into the pot whole with the seed still inside, exactly as it is done at home. It keeps its shape and its skin stays intact instead of breaking down into pulp.

Everyday

Plain rice at the end of a meal, roti, paratha, khichdi. A spoon on the side of a heavy lunch cuts through it nicely.

Worth trying

Stir a spoon into thick curd and eat it with paratha. Serve it with rice and fried fish, or beside a plain moong dal khichdi, where the sweet and sour lifts a simple plate.

Keeping it fresh

• Always use a clean, dry spoon. Water is what spoils a pickle, not time.
• Close the lid properly and keep the jar on a cool, dry shelf away from sunlight.
• No fridge needed. Refrigerating is fine but not required.
• Best within four months of opening, six months unopened.

Available in 200 g and 500 g food grade plastic jars, double sealed and bubble wrapped for transit. Made and bottled in Kolkata. Seasonal batch, so stock runs out and returns the next winter.

The Flavor Chapter is a small homemade pickle business run out of a kitchen in Kolkata, West Bengal. We make Bengali achar the way it has always been made at home. Seasonal fruit bought locally, cold pressed mustard oil, a spice blend handed down rather than bought in, and enough resting time for the two to meet.

We are not a factory. Every batch is made by hand in quantities small enough for one person to watch over the whole thing, which limits how much we can sell and is why some jars disappear for months at a time. Kul and amla are winter fruit, so we make them in winter.

What we will not do: no chemical preservatives, no vinegar shortcuts, no artificial colour. A properly made pickle preserves itself in oil, salt and spice. It does not need help from a laboratory.

Every order is sealed, double wrapped and packed by hand before it ships across India. If a jar arrives broken, we replace it.