People who are used to eating a lot of Middle Eastern food are generally not afraid of sourness (case in point: this pickled mango / amba recipe!).
There should be some element in a Middle Eastern dinner that, if eaten on its own, would make your eyes squint shut, your nose fill with vinegar, and your mouth pucker to a point.
Not all of us eat these things on their own or have an obsession with sour foods, but eating entire lemons whole is not unheard of. We sometimes dust on so much sumac that you can’t see the food underneath. After doling out pomegranate molasses, we lick the spoon, and make the face. It’s almost unbearable—it brings tears to our eyes.
And if you’re always trying to find something that’s another level of sour, amba, or pickled mango, is a really good one.
amba ingredients
fenugreek / yellow curry powder
According to Yotam Ottolenghi and Sami Tamimi, amba (also known as torshi anbeh) is originally from India, but it has become a staple of Middle Eastern cuisine. The key to amba’s distinct flavor is fenugreek seeds, which taste a little like celery, but with a nice umami flavor and fragrance.
Many good yellow curry powders include fenugreek seeds, so if you can’t find them, substituting more yellow curry powder in its place will approximate the flavor. I’ve included instructions in the recipe for anyone who needs to make this substitution.
other varieties of amba
Middle Eastern amba doesn’t always include mango, but fenugreek seems to be the uniting factor in just about all recipes. For instance, cabbage amba is another popular amba pickle. Sham of Vegan Iraqi Food has a wonderful recipe for cabbage amba, with plenty of fenugreek flavor. But in any event, amba is incredibly tart and delicious.
green mangoes
a little extra tang
One of the things that makes pickled mango amba so tangy is the fact that you’re starting out with an ingredient that’s already sour before it even hits the vinegar brine. Instead of standing in the produce aisle gently pressing on every mango to try to find the one that yields to slight pressure, you’ll weed through a million ripe, perfect mangoes to find the tough green ones that everyone else rejects.
Green mangoes are crunchy, tart, and ideal for pickling, since they will soften slightly instead of entirely melting into the vinegar.
prepping green mangoes
While ripe mangoes are a cinch to slice into pieces, unripe mangoes are just a little different, since you have to use a lot more pressure to slice through it, and the peel won’t release from the meat very easily. Feel free to use the gifs below as a guide.
Prepping the mangoes is the most time-consuming part of this recipe, but it only takes about ten minutes. Everything else is as simple as boiling the water, vinegar, and seasoning, pouring it over the mango slices, and letting it sit in the fridge for at least a day or two. Like any pickle, amba will keep for a long time. Discard it after a while if it seems off (but, as they say, it probably won’t last that long).
pickled mango | amba
- Prep Time: 15 minutes
- Total Time: at least 3 hours 15 minutes
- Yield: 2 pints
Ingredients
- 3 green, unripened mangoes *
- 2 tablespoons lemon juice
- 3/4 cups water
- 3/4 cups apple cider vinegar
- 2 1/4 teaspoons curry powder
- 3/4 teaspoons ground turmeric
- 2 1/4 teaspoons ground fenugreek seeds **
- 1/4 to 1/2 teaspoon red pepper flakes
- 1 3/4 teaspoons fine sea salt
Instructions
- Pit and peel the mangoes and then slice them into thin strips. Coat them in lemon juice. ***
- Pack the mangoes into two pint-sized canning jars.
- In a small saucepan, combine water, cider vinegar, curry powder, turmeric, fenugreek, red pepper flakes, and sea salt. Bring to a boil and then immediately remove from heat. Pour over the mangoes.
- This recipe is designed for 2 pints, but if you need to, feel free to top them off with a tablespoon or two of lemon juice. If the tops are poking out, give them a shake every day for the first few days.
- Store the amba in the refrigerator for at least 6 hours before serving. It is pretty good as a quickle after 3 hours, but it’s even better after a few days.
Notes
Serving suggestions: This is a very flavorful pickle and should be served with food that doesn’t have a lot of flavor and piquancy of its own; use this anywhere you want to add acidity and brightness, like you would with a chutney, relish, or salsa. Serve alongside grilled meats and veggies, burgers, hot dogs, riza sh’ariyeh, and/or a simple salad with a very light dressing. Leave the amount of amba up to your guests instead of plating it for them. Everyone has a different preference for tartness, and while some guests will polish off a whole pint, others will only have one or two pieces (but rest assured, just about everyone will love it).
* The mangoes should be very firm and should not yield to pressure. It’s ok if they are a little red, but they should be mostly green (judge by squeezing more than color).
** You can easily find ground fenugreek seeds online or in almost any Indian market. Although they’re from the same plant, they taste very different from fenugreek leaves (just like cilantro doesn’t taste like coriander seeds). You can sometimes find fenugreek seeds in Middle Eastern markets and health foods stores, but I find that Indian markets are the only really reliable source. If you can’t find ground fenugreek seeds, feel free to leave it out and use a total of 1 tablespoon + 1 teaspoon curry powder for the recipe.
*** See above gifs for instructions on pitting and peeling unripe mangoes. It’s a little different than pitting and peeling a ripe mango, since you can’t easily separate the flesh from the peel and you have to use a bit more pressure to slice through, and must therefore stabilize it.
So excited to have found this; thank you!
yay I’m so glad!
If I want to make a large batch, can I process in a water bath for a longer shelf life? Will this affect the texture?
Good question! I’ve never tried it, and am by no means a preserving/canning expert, but as long as you know what you’re doing (unlike me! haha) I don’t see why not! It will probably have a texture more like the commercially bottled ones, which are more of a sauce than a pickle (but soooo good, and more what most people expect of amba these days anyway).
Hi! Do these pickles sit out on the counter for a few days before putting in the fridge? Thanks for the great recipe!
That’s a great question! Since they’re vinegar pickles, they can go straight into the refrigerator 🙂
how long is this supposed to last till it goes bad? Also, how do I avoid fermentation?
Really good questions! So I’ve never kept amba around longer than a couple weeks, because it always somehow disappears (heh heh…), but that’s probably not the most helpful answer. My guess is that it would last one or two weeks longer, maybe up to a month. Make sure you discard it if it develops an off-odor or if you notice any mold. The best way to avoid spoilage is to keep the mango submerged in the pickling brine (it will soften as it sits in the fridge, and should be able to keep things submerged as you start to use up the jar). I’ll try to restrain myself from eating the whole jar next time I make some, to try to push the limit and test how long it actually lasts in the fridge 😉