Syrian Pickles: Mhallal

On a Syrian table the pickle plate is not a choice; it arrives beside the mezze, the shawarma, the ful and the grill without being asked for. The jars are put up in September and October, in the weeks when vegetables are cheap, and the table eats from them all year.

Brine, not vinegar

The method is salt water. Salt, water, a little lemon or vinegar, and fermentation does the rest. Anyone arriving from Turkey notices it in the first bite: Syrian pickles are markedly less sharp and more salty. A vine leaf or a few chickpeas go into the jar to keep the vegetables crisp, and a slice of beetroot goes in for colour.

What is on the plate

Small cucumbers, turnip turned pink by beetroot, little courgettes stuffed with carrot and mint, green and red peppers, garlic, cracked olives. There is also plain brined aubergine, and it should not be confused with makdous: makdous is stuffed with walnut and kept under olive oil, while this aubergine sits in salt water.

The pink turnip is the most visible thing on any stall. The colour is beetroot, not dye. What ends up on the plate changes from house to house and shop to shop; there is no standard mix.

Where to buy it

The pickle seller — mhallalati — is a shop type of its own. In Damascus they line the Bzouriyeh and Midhat Pasha stretch, in Aleppo they sit inside the souq. The sale is by weight. In a restaurant the plate comes with the meal. In the market you buy it by the jar or by the kilo.