The easiest way to make a meal more interesting is to change what's on the side.
This pack brings together five pickles that share a common thread — garlic, ginger, mustard oil, the slow patience of sun-maturation — but diverge completely in what they're made from and how they feel on the plate. One is grated root vegetable.
One is chunky jackfruit fibre. One is five winter vegetables kept deliberately crunchy. One is slow-cooked tomato and garlic. One is a sharp, aromatic mix of three things in equal measure.
There's something in here for the person who eats the same dal-chawal five days running but refuses to eat it the same way twice.
For the person who grew up eating whatever was jarred in the season, before supermarkets made every ingredient available always and variety quietly disappeared from the table.
These five pickles use ingredients that were once a natural part of the weekly rotation in Mithila kitchens — root vegetables, seasonal gourds, winter greens, fresh chilli — before convenience narrowed the range.
Each jar is 150g, enough for 7-10 meals. Keep all five open at once. Reach for a different one each day. That's the point.
🌶 WHAT'S INSIDE & HOW IT TASTES
Garlic, Ginger & Green Chilli Mix Pickle (Lahsun Mirch ka Achar)
Taste: Bold • Aromatic • Chatpata • Medium spicy
What this pickle is: Equal parts garlic, ginger, and green chilli — each sun-dried separately to remove moisture before being brought together with lemon juice, hand-roasted spices, and mustard oil. The balance is precise: garlic for depth, ginger for warmth, green chilli for clean and steady heat. Lemon juice stops the sharpness from tipping over.
This is the overtone pickle of this pack. The flavour profile it carries — pungent, garlicky, gingery — runs as a thread through the other four jars too. Start here to understand what holds this pack together.
Bold, aromatic, and addictive in small quantities. The one you'll reach for without thinking.
Is this pickle very pungent?
Yes — garlic and ginger are both present in full. If you enjoy garlicky food, this is straightforward. If you're sensitive to strong garlic aroma, the Tomato Chutney or Panchranga in this pack are gentler starting points.
Grated Oal Pickle (Oal Barobara)
Taste: Tangy • Warming • Gingery • Moderately spicy
What this pickle is: Oal (suran or jimikand) is a dense, earthy root vegetable — not widely pickled, which is exactly why this preparation is worth knowing. Equal quantities of grated oal, ginger, and green chilli are combined — "barobara" means equal in Bihari, and the name is the recipe. Everything is finely grated, no chunks, so the mixture matures as a single cohesive paste rather than separate pieces floating in oil.
The preparation requires one step most pickles don't: lemon juice added early to neutralise oal's natural itchiness. Done correctly, the result is smooth, warming, and deeply gingery with a lingering finish. It spreads easily on roti and mixes beautifully into rice.
In texture and character, this is the most distinctive pickle in this pack. It doesn't announce itself — it settles in slowly and stays there.
Does oal pickle cause itchiness?
No. Lemon juice is added early in the process specifically to neutralise oal's natural itch. The pickle is safe to eat without any discomfort.
Panchranga Pickle (Five-Vegetable Mix)
Taste: Crunchy • Tangy • Spicy • Sour • Salty
What this pickle is: Five vegetables — cauliflower, turnip, carrot, ginger, green chilli — prepared together with deliberately minimal spicing so each one still tastes like itself. In a pack built around garlic and ginger intensity, Panchranga is the counterpoint: lighter, crunchier, more vegetable than masala.
The restraint is the point. Most mixed pickles drown their ingredients in oil and spice. Panchranga does the opposite — the spice steps back so the vegetables come forward. After 7–10 days in the sun and 1–3 months aging in glass martabaans, the crunch holds. Cauliflower still tastes like cauliflower. Turnip like turnip. Five vegetables in one jar, each distinct.
In this pack, it's the one that gives your palate a break between the bolder jars.
Why does Panchranga take so long to ship after it's made?
After sun-drying, it ages in glass martabaans for 1–3 months. This isn't a delay — it's the process. The aging is what brings the five vegetables into balance without any single one overpowering the others.
Jackfruit Garlic Chilli Mix Pickle (Kathal Achar)
Taste: Hearty • Garlicky • Earthy • Moderately spicy
What this pickle is: Raw jackfruit, steamed before pickling so the fibres soften without losing structure, then lightly crushed — not blended — to create a texture that absorbs masala like no chunk-cut pickle can. Garlic is crushed by hand so its juice runs into the preparation rather than sitting alongside it. Green chilli adds controlled heat.
The result is the most substantial pickle in this pack. It doesn't behave like a condiment. It sits on the plate the way a sabzi does — hearty, filling, worth spooning generously over rice. In a week of varied lunches, this is the one that makes a simple bowl of khichdi or dal-chawal feel like a complete meal without needing anything else.
This is also the only pickle in this pack where the primary texture is soft rather than crunchy or grated — a deliberate contrast to the Oal Barobara and Panchranga sitting alongside it.
Is jackfruit pickle chewy?
No. Steaming before pickling and slow sun-maturation soften the fibres naturally. The texture is soft and yielding, not chewy or fibrous.
Tomato Garlic & Green Chilli Chutney
Taste: Tangy • Savoury • Gently spicy • Chunky
What this pickle is: The only cooked preparation in this pack, and the most versatile one on the table. Garlic is fried first in mustard oil — the base that anchors everything — then ginger and curry leaves follow, then chopped tomatoes, then whole green chillies at the end. Kalpana Ji learned this recipe from her mausi. It cooks down in a day rather than maturing over weeks.
The texture is chunky and thick — closer to a sauce than an achar — which means it travels well beyond the thali. Spread on bread, spooned into a sandwich, stirred into a momo dipping bowl, or used as the base of a quick snack plate. In a pack of sun-dried pickles, this chutney is the one that crosses over into everyday fast eating.
The garlicky mustard oil hit at first, the slow tomato tang after. Comforting and bold in equal measure.
Is this the same as a tomato sauce or ketchup?
Not at all. This is savoury, spiced, and mustard oil-forward — nothing like the sweet, vinegar-based sauces most people know. Think of it as a cooked Bihari chutney: chunky, garlicky, and built for real food rather than fast food.
Upgrade Variant also includes (50g each): Instant Makhana Kheer Mix in Kesar and Coconut flavours.
🍽 FIVE LUNCHES, FIVE JARS
You don't need a special occasion to eat well. You need five jars and five different lunches.
Here's one way the week might go:
A bowl of khichdi — soft, comforting, made in twenty minutes — with the Jackfruit Garlic Chilli Mix spooned generously over the top. The jackfruit adds body that khichdi doesn't have on its own. This isn't a condiment moment. It's a meal.
Poha — light, quick, the lunch you make when you don't want to think — with the Grated Oal Pickle stirred in. The warming gingery paste cuts through the mildness of poha and turns a simple bowl into something that stays with you through the afternoon.
Roti, dal, sookhi sabzi — the weekday thali in its most honest form — with Panchranga on the side. Five crunchy vegetables that don't compete with the dal or the sabzi. They add texture to every bite without changing the flavour of anything already on the plate. The crunch is the point.
Momos, pakoras, or a quick sandwich — whenever hunger arrives between meals or lunch is assembled rather than cooked — the Tomato Garlic Chilli Chutney does the work. Spread, dip, spoon. It turns whatever's on the plate into something sharper and more satisfying.
Roti with a heavier curry — something with body, something that needs cutting through — and the Garlic Ginger Green Chilli Mix on the side. Bold, pungent, chatpata. The one that makes the last few bites of a curry feel as interesting as the first.
Five lunches. Not one of them the same.
🧂 HOW THESE FIVE ARE MADE
What makes this pack interesting to eat is the same thing that makes it interesting to make: five pickles prepared by entirely different methods, all sharing the same foundational commitment to slow, honest production.
The Garlic Ginger Green Chilli Mix and the Oal Barobara are both sun-dried preparations — ingredients dried separately first, then combined and matured over days under open sun in Darbhanga. In the Oal Barobara, the grating is done entirely by hand and the proportions are held exactly equal — the "barobara" (equal measure) of the name is a process instruction as much as a flavour description.
The Jackfruit Pickle takes an extra step: raw jackfruit is steamed before any spicing begins, which allows the fibres to absorb masala in a way that uncooked jackfruit can't. The garlic is crushed rather than chopped so its juice becomes part of the pickle rather than a separate element.
Panchranga is the most patient of the five. Seven to ten days in the sun, then 1–3 months aging in glass martabaans before it ships. The minimal spicing — a deliberate choice — means the vegetables need time rather than heat to develop flavour.
The Tomato Chutney works differently from the other four. No sun. No martabaan. Garlic fried in mustard oil, tomatoes cooked down, whole green chillies added last. Ready in a day. The method is Kalpana Ji's mausi's — a recipe that comes from the cooked chutney tradition of Mithila rather than the sun-dried achar tradition. It belongs in this pack precisely because it doesn't belong to the same method as the others.
Whole spices for all five are sourced from Samastipur mandi, dry-roasted and ground in-house. Mustard oil from Rajasthan, tested for purity. No preservatives. No vinegar in the four sun-dried pickles.
❓ BEFORE YOU ORDER
Does this pack contain garlic?
Yes — four of the five pickles contain garlic: Garlic Ginger Green Chilli Mix, Oal Barobara, Jackfruit Garlic Chilli Mix, and Tomato Garlic Chilli Chutney. Panchranga is the only garlic-free pickle in this pack.
Which pickle is mildest? Which is strongest?
Mildest to strongest: Tomato Chutney → Panchranga → Oal Barobara → Jackfruit Garlic Chilli Mix → Garlic Ginger Green Chilli Mix. Though heat is only part of the story — the Garlic Mix is the most pungent, the Jackfruit is the most substantial, and the Tomato Chutney is the most versatile.
Are these pickles all very different from each other?
Yes, deliberately. Grated, chunky, crunchy, cooked, and spiced-paste — five different textures, five different primary ingredients, five different methods. The garlic and ginger thread through most of them but the eating experience of each jar is distinct.
How should I store the pickles?
Cool, dry place. Always use a clean, dry spoon. Oil separation and colour deepening are natural signs of maturation, not spoilage. Shelf life is 12–18 months from manufacturing.
Can I keep all five jars open at the same time?
Yes — and that's the intended way to use this pack. Each jar stores well once opened as long as you use a dry spoon and keep the lid closed between uses.
Is this pack suitable for gifting?
Yes. The 150g jars are compact, the variety makes it interesting to receive, and the range of textures and flavours means there's something for most palates in one pack.