My Grandma's traditional black gooseberry pickle. A nostalgic recipe!

Hi Friends, hope many of you would have heard about black gooseberry pickle/karinellikka/nellikka karuppichathu. It’s a traditional Kerala pickle normally prepared by farmer families in Travancore region of Kerala. I thought about doing this video, when I got some fresh gooseberries from one of my neighbours. It was plucked from their farm. Then I remembered about my grandmother’s special recipe using blackberries. Whenever we go to see grandma, she will have this black gooseberry pickle with her to treat us with meals.

It was actually prepared as a preserved dish to keep for long time in olden days. The main intention was to store it for the upcoming months of less income due to rain or something else. Still it is a delicious pickle prepared by our moms in our families. So, I decided to prepare my grandma’s delicious black gooseberry pickle using these gooseberries. I called up her and got the recipe. And tried it.

My grandmother used to cook it on firewood stove before. And it gets ready after long days of processing. It takes around 15 days to finish the process. Clay pot is used to prepare this special pickle. The gooseberries turns into black in colour finally. That’s why this pickle is called black gooseberry pickle or karinellikka or nellikka karuppichathu. The preparation is shown in my video. Very less ingredients are required to do this. Birds eye chilli, curry leaves, fenugreek powder, dried red chilli powder, salt etc. are the main ingredients. And we need garlic and gingelly oil/coconut oil for final preparation.

Nowadays everyone do it using gas stove. But clay pot is mandatory. It’s really a healthy recipe because gooseberries are rich with vitamin c and it helps to give us immunity. And I prepared some normal gooseberry pickle and gooseberry marmalade as well. Hope you all enjoy my video.