Skip to main content
Snack

Mango or Lime Kussoondee

A spicy pickled mango or lime with mustard oil, vinegar, and ground spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Cumin and turmeric match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,698 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

Mango or Lime Kussoondee

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fruit and aromatics

  1. Peel and slice the mangoes, then salt them for 2 days.

  2. Cut the limes into quarters, then salt them for 2 days.

  3. Clean and finely slice the ginger.

  4. Clean the garlic. Slice half of it. Grind the other half.

  5. Grind the mustard seed, chillies, jeerah, pepper, turmeric, and mathee seeds.

Make the pickle

  1. Warm the mustard oil in a well-tinned vessel until hot.

  2. Add the ground spices to the hot oil and brown them well.

  3. Add the sliced ginger, ground garlic, mangoes, and vinegar, and cook for a while.

  4. If using limes, add them to the mixture after browning and cooling to avoid bitterness.

  5. Taste the mixture and add more salt if necessary.

Bottle

  1. When the mixture cools, fill clean, dry bottles with it.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Cumin + turmerictop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,698 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  2. Ginger + turmerictop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,776 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  3. Cumin + garlictop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,082 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  4. Cumin + gingertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,733 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  5. Mustard + turmerictop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,279 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Mangoes
Provide the bulk of the pickle and, once salted, release moisture and tang as they cure.
Mustard oil
Carries the spices and gives the pickle its pungent flavour and preserving fat layer.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that sharpens flavour and helps preserve the pickle.
Salt
Draws out moisture from the fruit and helps preserve the pickle.
Dry chillies
Add heat and colour to the spice base.
Mustard seed
Contributes a sharp, nutty pungency when browned in oil.

The step that matters

Browning the ground spices in hot oil. Spices scorched in oil turn bitter, while spices browned gently release aromatic compounds and deepen flavour. Taking them to a rich brown without burning sets the pickle's base flavour.

Swap the mango

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (mustard, cumin, ginger, garlic, pepper, vinegar, turmeric):

  1. Limefits better
  2. Lemonfits better
  3. Avocadofits about as well
  4. Mangothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mustard, cumin, ginger, garlic, pepper, vinegar, turmeric. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

You might also like

FrittersFritters56 recipesCrisp CrackersCrisp Crackers7 recipes