Last weekend I attended a free workshop at Yandina Community Gardens on cooking with tropical fruit and vegetables. This was one of my favourite dishes, easy to prepare and so full of asian flavours. We have been having it with our fish and salad, and as a side dish to our steak this week.
When I arrived at the workshop I was impressed by the colour and texture of the display of goodies. On the left is a mixture of birds eye chillies, garlic and ginger in apple cider. The Philippino's use it as a condiment like we use tomato sauce. In the centre are dried drumstick tree leaves (well worth a Google), and on the right are the colourful papaw pickles.
Ingredients
1 green papaw
1 medium carrot
1/2 green capsicum
1/2 red capsicum
5 cloves of garlic
eschallots
2 thumb size ginger
2 hot chillies
sugar
2 tbsp turmeric powder
3 cups apple cider vinegar
2 cups raw sugar
3 tbsp salt
Peel green papaw and remove seeds, shred with a grater. Do the same with the carrot and thinly slice the red and green capsicum. Julienne the ginger and slice the garlic and eschallots. Place all these ingredients into a large pyrex dish.
Boil the cider vinegar, raw sugar, salt and turmeric until sugar is dissolved and it smells aromatic.
Pour over the vegetables, stir and pack into jars. Rinse jars in boiling water to sterlise and ensure they hot when the hot pickle mixture is added.
Now, how simple is that? This recipe made five jam-size jars of pickles. We also got to take home some Cassava, starfruit and drumstick tree leaves from the workshop. It was a fantastic morning and if you ever see anything like this going on in your neighbourhood give it a go!
What exotic things have you made lately?
