How do you immediately take a boring, routine meal and turn it into a lip-smacking experience? You add Ammiji’s Gongura Pachadi to it! Made from indigenous Gongura or Sorrel leaves, this pickle-chutney is that fantastic amalgam of the spicy, the sour and the umami.

Gongura leaves not only taste good, but they’re a powerhouse of vitamins and antioxidants. They’re rich in folate, Vitamin B6 and Vitamin C. The antioxidants in them boost your overall health quotient immensely. 

Combine this Andhra delicacy with dal-chawal, and you’ll be delighted. Pair it with dosas or appams, and you’ll be in seventh heaven. Or just have it with plain steamed rice and a dollop of ghee, and you’ll be in for an unforgettable experience. This pachadi has the power to transform any meal – we kid you not.

Ingredients: Gongura Leaves, Red Chilli, Salt, Mustard seeds, Ginger, Garlic, Sesame Oil 

Weight: 165 gms

Best before: 12 months.

Refrigerate upon opening for longer shelf life.

The green chilli is the star of the Indian dining table – and this tangy and spicy pickle makes it the superstar of any meal!

In most Indian households, meals are accompanied by a platter of raw cut onions, lemons and a pile of green chillies to the side. Yes, we love our green chillies. Chopped up green chillies go into every sabzi and mirchi-nimbu hangs on every doorway!

Enter, Ammiji’s Green Chilli Pickle, which takes the star and turns it into a superstar! Whole green chillies, pickled in lemon juice and a few scattered lemon halves thrown in for the extra zing. This is the most underrated pickle to ever go on a table. It’ll add excitement to your dal-chawal, romance to your pulao and variety to your sabzi-roti. It’ll add heat to your food – spice on your plate, tang on your tongue. This is the pickle we always reach for when our meals are routine.

Ammiji’s Green Chilli Pickle is made at home, in small batches, with fresh produce every time. No preservatives and no hidden ingredients. What you see is what you get.

Ingredients: Green Chillies, Mustard Seeds, Cumin, Lemon, Lemon Juice, Salt, Sesame Oil.

Good for 12 months.

Refrigerate for longer shelf life.

Weight: 300 gm

Come summer, and the king of all fruits, our much-revered mango, takes on different avatars in the Indian cuisine. We dip our rotis into its pulp, add it to lassi and milk, make desserts out of it and then preserve it for posterity in the form of chutneys and pickles. Of all the chutneys though, the chunda is the most versatile. It’s jam-like consistency that still holds a lot of texture is not only intriguing, but supremely tempting too.

Ammiji did wonderful, delicious things with mangoes, and this chunda is testimony to that. She made it with jaggery instead of sugar, giving it an earthy taste that resonated so well with summer lunches.

Our favorite way to eat Ammiji’s chunda was to spread it on ajwain paranthas and roll them up and eat them. And that hasn’t changed after all these years, though occasionally when we can’t find any sweets to finish off a meal, we’ll just down a spoonful of chunda! 

Add some sweet, nostalgic deliciousness to your meals with this chunda. Warning though, it’s hella addictive! 

Ingredients: Mango, Organic Jaggery, Salt, Rock Salt, Cumin, Red Chilli, Garam Masala, Turmeric, Melon Seeds

Weight: 200 gms

Refrigerate after opening.

Best before 3 months.

The perfect way to add some spice and tang to your meals. And so much deliciousness!

This one’s for those of you who appreciate the yin and yang of life. The black and white. The khatta and meetha. The teekha and addictive. Okay, we could go on and on.

Ammiji’s intolerance for bland, unaccompanied meals is legendary. We, her grandkids, knew that we’d never be served a meal at her table that wasn’t accompanied by a chutney, a pickle or some special thing that she had brewed up. And as kids, one of our favorites was this addictive Lemon Chutney. It was khatta enough to make your toes curl, and meetha enough to have with the last bite of our meal. And it was totally addictive. So much so, that we finished it faster than Ammiji could make it, often making her mutter, “Khasma nu khaaney, sungh lende ne inoo!” (Roughly translates too: *Mild slur*, they inhale this chutney!) That we did.

And once you get your hands on this spectacular chutney, we’re sure you’ll be inhaling it too. It took us a while to tweak Ammiji’s original recipe so that we could substitute sugar with jaggery and still make it as delicious, and we seem to have done it. 

Slow-cooked lemon pulp and juice, sweetened with jaggery and spiced up sparingly. Put this on your shelf stat!

Ingredients: Lemon, Jaggery, Salt, Black Salt, Red Chilli, Garam Masala, Mustard Oil.

Weight: 225 gms

Price: Rs 450 350 (inclusive of taxes)

Good for: 3 months

Keep Refrigerated. (This chutney contains no preservatives.)

Always use a clean, dry spoon while scooping out Ammiji’s legendary chutneys!

Back in January 2021, Ammiji’s health saw a sudden decline. That was the first time we saw her look slightly defeated. On one of our visits to her, while we sat in her verandah on a cold and sunny winter afternoon, she suddenly popped the question we were not prepared for, “So when are you doing my phaalsa chutney? After I die?”

That led to a promise, and here’s fulfilling that promise…

Phalsaas are those short-lived little morsels of happiness that bless us with their presence for about a month every year in North India, and then they disappear, leaving us craving for that tangy, crunchy, titillating feel in our mouth. Tiny little berries that range from a dull pick to a deep purple in colour, they are best had dusted with some rock salt. We’ve already made a sherbet out of them, and this year, because of the promise, we’ve cooked them into Ammiji’s favorite chutney.

This recipe is classic Ammiji. It’s simple, it uses minimal ingredients, it has a slightly spicy kick and it’s fragrant. The end result is a chutney that has layers of flavour and the subtle hint of the spices we use in our garam masala.

This chutney brings back memories of baskets of phalsaas, fresh from the orchard. We’d eat some (ok, a lot) and the rest would be purloined by Ammiji to make her phaalsa sherbet and chutney. According to her, these were precious little berries and they had to be preserved in some form or the other so we could enjoy them for a longer time.

So here’s Ammiji’s favorite chutney, in her classic recipe, with her loving blessings.

Goes well with any meal. Best had with ajwain paranthas. Or better still, by the spoonful!

Ingredients: Phalsaa berries, organic raw cane sugar, Rock salt, Ammiji’s garam masala, brown cardamom.

Caution: These berries contain tiny seeds that may be a choking hazard for small children.

Weight: 200 gm

Refrigerate upon opening. Keep refrigerated for longer shelf life.

The rains hit India, and the entire country goes into a frenzy of deep frying. Because there’s nothing better than to be munching on piping hot pakodas while it’s pouring outside. Unless, the pakodas are accompanied by our brand new Aam Kasundi – that combination is infinitely better than anything else can ever be!

The goodness and sharpness of fermented mustard seeds are combined with the typical flavors of raw mango, green chilli and ginger to make a mustard sauce that’s a Bengali staple. Spread it on your sandwiches, dip your fried snacks in it or put it into your burgers – it’s a dip/spread that is as delicious as it is versatile.

Mustard comes with a host of benefits from promoting heart health to strengthening bones and aiding digestion. And when it is fermented, the goodness just doubles.

Ditch your bottled tomato ketchup in favour of a dip that’s not only nutritious, traditional and delicious, but is also homemade and preservative-free.

Ingredients: Raw mango, Black mustard, Yellow mustard, Ginger, Green Chilli, Coriander, Cumin, Turmeric, Salt

Weight: 185 gms

Aam, Karonda, Green Chillies…the threesome made in heaven! ;)

What’s better than a mango pickle with your parantha? A mango pickle that also has green chillies. And what’s better than that? A mango pickle that has BOTH green chillies AND karondas! That is why we call this pickle the definition of greed – it has everything that one could possibly want!

Luscious mangoes, fiery green chillies and tart, crisp karonda berries make for the perfect combination. The fire in the chillies complements the sourness of the other two star ingredients, making this the perfect pickle to have with your aloo paranthas or rajma chawal or khichdi. The spices used in this pickle are subtle, letting the taste of the main ingredients shine through. There’s a hint of nutmeg, a bite of long pepper, a whiff of star anise, and of course, the distinctive taste of pickling spices.

When Ammiji was asked if we could do a mango pickle with karonda, her first reaction was, “Beta, alu, gobhi aur tamatar bhi daal lo!” (yeah, she’s salty) but then she got serious and asked us to include green chillies in the mix too. And the result was pure delightfulness! Yes, we promise to always follow Ammiji’s advice.

Ingredients: Raw mango, Karonda, Green Chillies, Turmeric, Salt, Black Salt, Red Chilli, Black Pepper, Fenugreek seeds, Nigella seeds, Fennel seeds, Carom seeds, Nutmeg, Star anise, Pipli, Coriander, Cumin, Asafoetida,  Cold-pressed Mustard oil.

Weight: 200 gms

Good for: 9 months

Refrigerate for longer shelf life.

The famous Amritsari Papad, now in their homemade avatar. The perfect accompaniment to dal-chawal or sabzi-phulka and of course, they hold their own as a stand-alone anytime snack too.

Who hasn’t heard about Amritsari papad wadiyan? Any tourist worth her or his salt will pick up a pack or two from the ubiquitous papad shops that surround the Golden Temple. These papad and wadiyan, though delicious, are mass produced under questionable hygiene conditions. Ammiji visited these shops only if it were an emergency and if she had run out of her own homemade papad wadiyan. Even now, when her arthritic fingers will not let her roll out papad or shape the wadiyan properly, she will sit on a chair in her verandah, and get these made by her helper under her eagle-eyed supervision.

These papad and wadiyan come to you from Amritsar, made under Ammiji’s supervision, from ingredients that are hand-picked by her. They are made from premium urad dal and use the choicest spices.

Ajwain is a perennial hit with Ammiji. She recognizes the immense digestive benefits of these tiny seeds and incorporates them into almost everything that comes out of her kitchen. Stomach ache – have ajwain waala paani; heaviness – have ajwain waali chai; stomach upset – have roasted ajwain with salt; her list of recommendations for ajwain goes on and on.

Here, she has taken her favorite spice and incorporated them into her traditional Amritsari papads. Did you know that papad aids digestion? That is the reason they have been a part of the Indian diet for as far back as we can remember! And with the added benefit of ajwain, they’re double the power!

You can roast them on a griddle or pan, deep fry them, toast them or microwave them – any which way, they add that perfect zing to your meal.

Ingredients: Urad dal, ajwain, hing, salt, sajji khaar

Weight: 250 gms

Good for: 6 months. Please keep in an airtight container for longevity.