How to Make the Best Atcharang Papaya (Relish) Filipino Recipes

The Philippines has different kinds of fruits and veggies to offer since it has large and rich resources. No wonder why Filipinos are good cooks and love to create fantastic recipes out of all its resources. 

Papaya is another fruit/ vegetable that is usually more often used in many Filipino recipes like Tinolang manok, ginataan, ginisang papaya, and many more. This unripe green papaya is the main ingredient used in the dish called Atchara. 

This article would help you figure out what an Atsara is, cook the best Atcharang papaya recipes, the variants, and ways to cook the featured dish. 

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What is Best Atcharang Papaya

Atchara originated in Indian achar and transmitted to the Philippines through the car or Malaysia, Brunei, and Indonesia. 

It is a well-known side dish in the Philippine Kitchen at home or even at restaurants. This side dish is often and normally served along with fried, grilled, and roasted recipes like chicken, pork, and seafood barbeque recipes. 

A pickle made grated unripe green papaya with julienned ginger, onion, garlic, carrot slices, and bell pepper. Pineapple chunks or raisins, chilies, freshly ground black pepper, whole peppercorns, and red pepper mixture could be additional ingredients. These ingredients, along with sugar/syrup, salt, and vinegar solution, mixed well together to create this outstanding dish like acharang papaya recipes. 

Filipinos make a different version of this dish, and some are mixing bitter gourd slices, cucumber, and raisins to make the recipes develop more flavor and delicate taste. 

Traditional atchara has a sweet and sour vinegar flavor because of the mixture of the pickled solution you put in it. You could cook it by boiling the mixture with all other ingredients and stir it until the solutions mix well with each other. 

You could also store the featured recipes within 5-6 months, especially when it is refrigerated. 

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Other Delicious Variations and Recipes 

The traditional atchara dish could transform into more delicious, delicate, and contain more bold flavor recipes. So, below are all the other versions and recipes you could try to experiment with to make your bland sweet-sour taste atchara to an amazing dish that you would love to eat. 

Achara with Pineapple

This version of atsara is just like the original version, along with its original ingredients. The difference is that you add either pineapple chunks or tidbits to the featured dish. Even the cooking steps are all the same, but you don't need to cook the pineapple so that when you eat it, you can feel the crispiness of both the pineapple and the shredded unripe green papaya. 

Pineapples in this featured dish contain manganese that might help you normalize your connective bones and tissues. It also contains vitamin C that might help you in fighting common infections. 

Achara with Raisins

It is a common and famous variation of the acharang green papaya recipes you could find in many Pinoy kitchens at home. Instead of putting pineapple tidbits or chunks, they used raisins as the substitute to the pineapple. It makes the atchara enhance its sweet and sour taste, which adds flavor to the recipes. 

Raisins are dark black or brown colored dried grapes used in many recipes to enrich their flavor. It contains natural sugar, which adds up to the sweetness of the atchara. If you are a sweet tooth, you could add these ingredients to the featured dish. 

Achara with Cucumber

If you are not fond of sweet delicacies and love food with a balanced flavor of the featured dish's sweet and sour taste, then adding a cucumber is the perfect option for you. 

Cucumber contains high beneficial nutrients because it is low in calories but high in many important minerals and vitamins that our body needs. It is an antioxidant that helps you to prevent heart, lung, and cancer diseases. 

Since it functions the same as the main ingredient in giving nutrients to our body, this cucumber is a great combination with the Atchara. 

Atsara with Chili

Another variation of the featured dish is atchara with chili. Not all people are a sweet tooth. Many love to eat atchara not just as a side dish but also as a main dish. So, adding chili to it would help you to increase your appetite. 

The way it is present is the same as the traditional way, but the only difference is that it adds chili to the recipes, which enriches the featured dish's bold, succulent flavor. They mostly use chili but chili vinegar to show the spicy flavor of the recipes. 

Atsarang Papaya na Maasim

It is another version which is very similar to the original and traditional version of the featured dish. The only difference is, this version has no sugar added to the brine solution. 

This version is the top option for those who love sour taste recipes and not a sweet food lover. It could serve as a main dish along with other recipes. 

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Troubleshooting

You could encounter errors while you are cooking a certain dish. You don't have to worry because we want to help you find a solution to the problem you could encounter while making the featured relish. So, grab a pen and a scratch, and let's start with it. 

• If you taste the pickled solution and it's very sour, try to add more sugar while you boil it. 

• On the other hand, if you already taste the pickled solution and it is very sweet, you could also add vinegar to contradict the brine solution's very sweet taste. 

• If you think that your shredded unripe green papaya is a bit watery, try to use a J cloth or cheesecloth and squeeze it gently to reduce the water. 

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Trivia about this Filipino Relish

Did you know Taste Atlas, the world's encyclopedia of drinks and foods, considered Atchara the great food or great side dish in the world? Yes, that's right. They rated the authentic Filipino dish as a perfect side dish that compliments other heavier Pinoy recipes. 

Atchara has health benefits to offer for use. It is an antioxidant, rich in fiber and vitamin C. It also boosts the immune system and aids in weight loss. It also helps to ease menstrual cramps during red days and improve digestion because of its fiber content. 

It also helps to prevent cancer, protect your bones against arthritis, reduce your stress, and great for the eyes as well. 

This side dish is very similar to Korean's famous fermented kimchi, Indian Chutney, and German sauerkraut. 

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Tips

Creating a simple yet delicate relish like Achara is easy if you are always making it. But if you are a beginner in cooking and want to try making the featured dish, then here are some tips that you could take note of to help you out. 

• Ensure that you cleansed and washed all the ingredients, especially the green papaya, carrots, raisins, and other ingredients you used to make this dish.

• You could add chilies, pineapples, and cucumber to this relish when you are making it to have more flavor and taste. 

• Many tried to use ripe papaya instead of the unripe to taste the natural sweetness when making Atchara. 

• Use unripe green papaya and ferment it with sugar/syrup, salt, and vinegar if you want it pickled.

• You could shred or mince the acharang papaya depending upon your ideal shape or size of your side dish. 

• After washing the shredded green papaya, you could place it in cheesecloth to drain it and ensure that it is not watery when combined with other elements. 

• After cooking it, let it cool for at least one hour. You could store the featured dish in jars that are airtight and chill them. 

• Avoid overcooking the papaya.

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Best Serve With

As a side dish, Atchara would not stand out without the other recipes that would highlight its sweet-sour taste. Thus, we provide you some recipes that are perfect for serving with the featured dish. 

• Tapsilog- is a food that consists of tapa, sinangag, and a fried egg. It is usually breakfast food served with atchara as a side dish that compliments very well.  
• Chicsilog- is another breakfast food just like Tapsilog, consisting of chicken, sinangag, and a fried egg. The atchara is a side dish that is perfect with it in the morning. 
• Tortang Dilis- is a fish cuisine that is usually served with an atchara dish since it complements the sweet-sour taste of the featured side dish. 
• Inihaw na Panga ng Tuna- a fish dish that is good to serve with the atsara recipes as a side dish. 
• Grilled pork belly - Aside from pork belly chicharron, another dish that could surely complement the featured dish is the grilled pork belly. 
• Roast Pork Belly- the salt-savory flavor of the roast pork belly perfectly fits the sweet and sour flavor of the featured dish. 
• Roast beef- Like the roast pork belly, its salt-savory flavor complements the atchara's delicate flavor. 
• Inihaw na Pusit is a seafood cuisine that is perfect for serving with the atsara recipes. It has a bitter, salt-savory taste that complements the featured side dish's unique taste. 
• Fried Chicken- atchara dish is perfect for serving recipes like fried chicken because it enhances its flavor. 
• Fried Tilapia- is a dish that is a particularly perfect combination with the featured side dish in many Pinoy homes. It complimented very well with the flavor and taste of it. 
• Chicken Inasal- is a chicken dish that makes the side dish stand out. It goes very well with the taste of the featured dish. 
• Coke/Sprite- is a beverage and the other recipes that complement the atchara's taste, which is the coke and sprite that allows the side dish to stand out. 

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Conclusion

Filipino love to serve their food with side dishes and relishes. So, atsara recipes are the perfect option to serve with heavier recipes like grilled, fried, and roasted recipes in the Pinoy kitchen.

Originally, many variations atchara could offer, such as Atsarang sayote, dampalit, ubod, and labong, which are also native ingredients you could find in the Philippines. But atsara recipes are the most famous kind of pickled dish in the country. 

It is rich in vitamins and offers several health benefits. It is not just a side dish and relishes but also healthy recipes that help you develop a healthy food lifestyle. 

So, come on and try this dish! It is another extraordinary dish that is not difficult to make, and you could easily find all the ingredients in the market. 

For more delicious recipe, visit Eat Like Pinoy!

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