Yam Pickle

I found Suran (also called Indian Yam or Elephant Yam) the other day at Namaste Plaza. Generally I only find the sweet potato like yam at the chinese store, so I use only frozen yam in my curries. Here is how the Indian Yam looks.

I was thrilled to find this vegetable. Kala Chana-Yam curry, yam fritters, yam sabzi are some of my favorite Konkani dishes. I was in the process of deciding wich recipe to make, when I saw this recipe in Divya's blog. The recently introduced BLOG LIST feature by blogspot has been a great advantage. I just have to add the blogs I frequently follow in my list, and it gives me a update of the most recent recipes they post. I followed Divya's recipe given here, and the pickle turned out to be wonderful. Thanks Divya for the recipe.
I am generally not a great fan of pickles as they contain a lot of salt which is added as a preservative. I guess it is okay to eat these pickles if you live in a place with hot and humid climate like India. But here in US, unless a person is an athlete or exercises regularly to work up a sweat, there is a need for an moderate amount of sodium in the daily diet. Eating lot of salty items can cause a bloating in the body due to water retention.

To make this pickle, I added 1 teaspoon salt for around 200 grams of pickle. I used around 100 grams of fried yam. For this I used 7 byadgi chilies and 2 normal hot red chilies. Great thing about this pickle is that it can be made with less salt as it is preserved like other pickles for a long time. Click here for the recipe.