Bilin Achcharu / Bilin Pickle

Hi steemians food lovers!

I am here with a super spicy, super tasty food recipe. This recipe is a Sri Lankan traditional recipe, and it is made mainly for special occasions like Sinhala and Hindu New Year celebration in April, alms giving, weddings or other special occasions in Sinhalese homes. This food costs and needs a big effort, so it is only made for special occasions. If it is so, we made it this time without a reason.

Dried Bilin

Bilin fruits are cut into pieces and dried in heavy sunlight for 4 days. This depends on the strength of sunrays in your area. I added this photo, just in case you do not know what is bilin?

_{A Bilin Tree with Fruits}

As we are living in a country near equator, we usually get high sunlight during daytime. After 2 days of drying, we season them with some salt. After perfectly drying, we keep those dried bilin in a clay pot or near the smoke. (Most of the typical houses in our country have wood hearth in their kitchen. So, this dried bilin is placed near them.)

_{Dried Bilins}

The fact about this dried bilin is, it gets better with age. Older the bilin, flavour is better. So, for Bilin Achcharu, we use at least 2 years old dried bilin.

We used about 200g of bilin for our dish. First, we must wash them thoroughly to remove any contaminants. Remember! These are 2 years old. So, we need to wash them properly to remove sand or other contaminants. My mother washed it for around 8 times. Then we need to dry them again in the sunlight. This time we do not keep them to completely dry up. There should be little moisture.

Lunijja Making

In our country, specially in our Southern part of the country, people used to preserve raw fish by salting. This is called making “Jaadi” in our country. As a by-product, we can have “Lunijja”. This is the liquid part in the pot which is used for the salting process of fish. In Sinhala, we call it Lunijja.

_Lunijja

Prepared dried bilin together with Lunijja are placed on flames using a clay pot and this will continue until the liquid portion is vaporized. If you don’t have Lunijja, then you can use salt water and vinegar together for this. Also, we can add little vinegar if you do not have enough Lunijja for this.

Making Pahe Powdered Mixture / Kalu (Black) Powdered Mixture”

Suuduru (cumin seeds), kottamalli (coriander) are separately heated(fry without oil) using a pan and we need to stir it time to time to avoid overheating. Do it until they change into dark colour.

_Ingredients

Also, we need to separately fry (without oil) some Cinnamon, Enasal(cardamom), Rampa, Karapincha (Curry leaves), and few raw seeds (10-12) of Kekulu (Red) rice and 20 dried chillies also.

_Ingredients

Then, blend all these together and make a powder. This powder is very good smelling, and the smell is unique.

_{Pahe Powdered Mixture}

These are all preparations for our work. let’s go to the ingredients.

Ingredients

Dried Bilin 200g
Lunijja
Vinegar
Red onion 500g
B-onion 1kg
Garlic 10/12 cloves
Green Chilli
Maldives fish 100g
Dried sprats 250g
Pahe Powder Mixture (Black Powder)
chilli flakes 50g
2 lemons
Rampe
Curry leaves (Karapincha)
Salt
Custard 1 teaspoon
Sugar 2 tablespoons
Turmeric Powder 1 teaspoon

How to Make

For bilin achcharu, we need to cut red onion, B-onion, garlic, green chilli (chop it) into small pieces. Chop Maldives fish too.

_Ingredients

Then we fry 3 types of chopped onions separately until they change to golden colour. Also, green chilli, curry leaves, rampe, Maldives fish, dry sprats are fried separately. Break down fried sprats into small parts if they are big.

_{Ingredients after Frying}

Then place a clay pot on the cooker and using 2 tablespoons of the same oil, heat up the prepared dried bilin. Make sure to put it on the law flame.

_Mixing
Finally, we can mix the ingredients. For this, chilli flakes, lemon juice, salt (as per your taste), custard, vinegar (small amount), sugar are added to the clay pot containing bilin.

_{Ready to Mix}
Also, fried onions, Maldives fish, dry sprats and all should be added. Ingredients should be mixed by hand thoroughly.

_{Bilin Achcharu}

Storing.

We can keep prepared bilin achcharu for more than 2 months if we avoid it from contact with water. Use a dry clay pot or dry glass bottles to store. Make sure to use dry spoon when taking out of the bottles/ pot.

_{Storing in a Clay Pot}

Best Matchings

It is very much delicious with hot rice and curries. Specially with dhal curry. Also, very much matching for Milk rice. If you want to have a very delicious and simple meal, it is very much tasty together with scraped coconut and hot rice. But do not eat large amounts at once as it can cause for gastritis etc.

Enjoy!!!!😍