No. 792

Indian Pickle with Fine Herbs

Acharts aux Fines Herbes

This is a product of East India. The way to prepare it is as follows: Mince finely slices of pumpkin and some small onions, cooking partly in boiling water; then trim some cauliflower, and small corn two inches long, and only half ripe; let these vegetables lay in salt for fifteen days in an hermetically closed jar, then unsalt them for six hours; pour over strong wine vinegar, add some ginger-root, saffron and small red peppers, and keep in a cool place for one month. When ready to use, lay them on side dishes, pour a little oil over, and sprinkle them over with chervil, chives and shallot all finely chopped.

← No. 791 Chow-Chow Cold Side Dishes No. 793 Lemons, Oranges, Figs, Blackberries →

For the Modern Kitchen Do not make this as written.

This is a two-stage preserve — a fortnight of dry salting in a sealed jar, then a month in vinegar — and the original gives no weight, ratio or temperature for either stage. The notes below explain the terminology and then why the method cannot be followed as printed.

What "achards" meansRanhofer's acharts is a French spelling of achar, the mixed vegetable pickle of South Asia; the French form is usually associated with the Indian Ocean colonies of Mauritius and R")union rible. Aux fines herbes refers only to the chervil, chives and shallot strewn over at the table, not to anything in the pickling jar.
"Small corn two inches long, only half ripe"These are immature ears, what a modern grocer sells as baby corn; at two inches the point is a cob young enough to eat whole.
"Unsalt them"Dessaler he the the cure back out by soaking in fresh water; the recipe does not say in how many changes. Six hours is a long soak, which suggests the vegetables were salted heavily.
No salt quantity is givenThe safety of a fifteen-day salt cure rests entirely on brine concentration. Traditional achar and salt-stock pickling generally work at around 10 percent salt or more by weight; much below that the vegetables are far more likely to spoil than cure. The recipe specifies nothing at all, so there is no way to know whether the batch in front of you is preserved or merely wet.
The sealed jar is the specific hazardLow-acid vegetables — pumpkin, onion, cauliflower, sweetcorn — held for two weeks in an airtight jar at room temperature, with an unmeasured amount of salt and no acid, is the anaerobic condition in which Clostridium botulinum can produce toxin. Nothing in the later vinegar stage destroys that toxin, and it gives no visible or reliable signal.
"Strong wine vinegar" is not a specificationNineteenth-century vinegar strength varied widely by producer. A shelf-stable vinegar pickle needs a known acidity, typically 5 percent, in a known proportion to the vegetables. Without that the final pH is unknown, and a month in a cool place will not fix it.
Saffron here does the work of turmericSaffron stands where an Indian achar would use turmeric for colour, though Ranhofer gives no reason for the choice. Either way it is a flavour and colour note, and contributes nothing to preservation.
If you want this pickleUse a current tested recipe for a vinegar-brined mixed vegetable pickle, with stated salt and acid quantities, and finish it with the ginger, chilli and chopped herbs as Ranhofer does.

A Little History

Charles Ranhofer, chef at Delmonico's in New York, published The Epicurean in 1894 as an encyclopaedic record of the restaurant's repertoire, and its cold side dishes chapter runs through the pickles and relishes a fashionable dining room was expected to keep on hand — and the fruit entry "Lemons, Oranges, Figs, Blackberries" immediately after. His "product of East India" is achar, the salted and spiced vegetable pickle found across South and Southeast Asia; the word is generally traced to Persian āchār and travelled with trade into Malay and Tamil, reaching French as achards, a form usually associated with the Indian Ocean colonies of Mauritius and Réunion. What the entry documents is how such a preserve arrived in an American kitchen at the end of the century: filtered through French colonial cooking, with saffron in place of turmeric, and served under a garnish of chervil, chives and shallot.