Atchara

Shredded green papaya salted and squeezed before it ever meets the vinegar.

Vegan.

Ingredients

• 1 kg green papaya, peeled and shredded
• 2 tablespoons salt, for drawing the papaya
• 500 ml cane vinegar
• 250 g caster sugar
• 2 carrots, shredded
• 1 red pepper, in thin strips
• a thumb of ginger, julienned
• 8 garlic cloves, sliced
• 1 onion, sliced
• 1 tablespoon black peppercorns
• 2 teaspoons salt, for the brine

Method

1. Use GREEN papaya — hard, pale and unripe. Ripe fruit dissolves in vinegar within days.
2. SALT THE SHREDDED PAPAYA WITH THE TWO TABLESPOONS AND LEAVE IT 1 HOUR, then SQUEEZE IT HARD in a cloth, in handfuls, until no more liquid comes out.
3. That squeeze is the step people skip and it decides everything. Papaya is mostly water: unsqueezed, it dilutes the vinegar in the jar and the whole batch goes soft and flat within a fortnight.
4. Boil the vinegar, sugar, the two teaspoons of salt and the peppercorns, and stir until the sugar has dissolved. Let it cool completely.
5. Mix the squeezed papaya with the carrot, pepper, ginger, garlic and onion and pack it into sterilised jars.
6. POUR THE COLD BRINE OVER. Hot brine cooks the shreds limp, and the point of atchara is that it stays crunchy against whatever fried thing it is served with.
7. Leave it 3 days before eating. It keeps two months in the fridge.

Our own recipe. This one was written for this site rather than taken from anywhere, so there is no source to point you at. The quantities and the order of the steps are choices, not the only way to do it.

Filed under Philippines · All recipes