Atchara (Filipino Pickled Green Papaya)

The Philippines, in the mid-1980s Marine Corps years. Grated unripe green papaya in a sweet vinegar brine — bright orange-gold, sweet and sour at once, served beside anything fried or grilled to cut the fat. Note the name: atchara is the same word as India’s achar, and the two are made by completely different methods.

Ingredients

• 1 large green (unripe) papaya, about 2 lb, peeled and grated
• 2 tablespoons pickling salt
• 1 large carrot, julienned
• 1 red bell pepper, julienned
• 1 small onion, sliced thin
• 6 cloves garlic, sliced
• 2 inch piece ginger, julienned
• 1/2 cup raisins
• 1/2 cup pineapple chunks, drained (optional)

BRINE

• 2 cups cane or white vinegar (5% acidity)
• 1 1/4 cups sugar
• 1 tablespoon pickling salt
• 1 teaspoon whole black peppercorns

Directions

Key ingredients

Black Pepper · Salt

1. Step 1 - Grate and salt the papaya. Peel the green papaya, remove the seeds, and grate it coarsely. Toss with the 2 tablespoons of salt and let it stand 1 hour.
2. Step 2 - Squeeze it dry, and squeeze hard. Gather the grated papaya in a clean cloth and wring out as much liquid as you can. This is the step that decides the texture — papaya is very wet, and any water left in it dilutes the brine and gives you a limp, watery atchara. You should get a surprising amount out.
3. Step 3 - Rinse and squeeze again. Rinse briefly in cold water to take off the excess salt, then wring dry a second time.
4. Step 4 - Make the brine. Bring the vinegar, sugar, salt and peppercorns to a boil, stirring until the sugar dissolves. Simmer 3 minutes, then take it off the heat and cool completely.
5. Step 5 - Combine. Toss the squeezed papaya with the carrot, bell pepper, onion, garlic, ginger, raisins and pineapple. Pack into clean jars.
6. Step 6 - Cover and rest. Pour the cooled brine over to cover, seal, and refrigerate at least 2 days before eating. It is better at a week.
7. Keeps 1 month refrigerated.

Notes

Where I met it. The Philippines, during the mid-1980s Marine Corps years — the same stretch that took me through Japan and Korea and rearranged what I thought pickled food was. I never knew how much I liked pickled food until those early years.

What it is for. Atchara goes beside fried and grilled food — pork barbecue, fried fish, anything rich — doing the job a pickle is supposed to do, which is cut through fat and reset your mouth. It is the same structural role as Pikliz (Haitian Pickled Cabbage) beside Haitian griot, and as chow chow beside a Southern plate. Three unconnected traditions that all worked out that fried food needs a hot sour thing next to it.

The name is the interesting part. Atchara is the same word as India’s achar, carried east by trade. But atchara is vinegar and sugar, and traditional Indian achar has no vinegar in it at all — it is salt, spice, mustard oil and sunlight. Same name, completely different craft. The word is not describing a method; it is describing a role at the table. See Achar, Green Mango (Indian Oil Pickle).

A correction to my own memory. I also remembered banana blossom among the pickled things I ate there. Looking for it, I could not find a documented Filipino vinegar pickle of banana blossom at all — what exists is kulawo, minced banana blossom in coconut milk, which is a salad and not a pickle. On the evidence, that is most likely what I ate, and I had been filing it under “pickled” for forty years because it was sour-ish, shredded and served in a small dish. Leaving that on the record rather than quietly deleting it.

Green papaya, incidentally, also turns up pickled in the Caribbean, almost identically, half a world away.