Ahmed

Ahmed Foods is a Pakistani food company known for pickles, chutneys, jams and sauces, a familiar name in Pakistani kitchens at home and across the diaspora. Its achar is the oily, spiced kind, with chunks of fruit and vegetables cured in a masala of seeds and chilli until they soften and turn sharp.

We carry Ahmed across four pickle collections, mango pickle, lime pickle, garlic pickle and mixed pickle, all in our pickles range. On the sweet side there is jam in fruit flavours and jelly crystals for setting dessert at home.

A spoonful of mango or mixed achar goes beside dal chawal, aloo paratha and a plate of biryani, and lime pickle cuts through a rich nihari or haleem. Garlic pickle is a favourite with plain rice and yoghurt, and the oil from the jar is stirred into raita or brushed on hot rotis. Mango jam spreads on toast and paratha at breakfast, and jelly crystals make trifle, jelly cups for children's parties and the jelly layer in a falooda.

Always use a dry spoon in a pickle jar and keep a layer of oil over the fruit, which stops mould forming. Opened jam belongs in the fridge, while a pickle jar is happiest in a cool cupboard, where its flavour keeps deepening for months. To compare achar makers, browse our Andhra pickles and the Priya shelf.