All dishes

Golbheda ko achar is the everyday tomato relish of the Nepali table — tomatoes blistered black over an open flame, then ground with garlic, chilli, toasted sesame and a pinch of timur into a smoky, tangy paste. It is closer to a fresh chutney than a preserved pickle and is made in small batches to be eaten within a few days. A spoonful lands on the rim of practically every dal-bhat plate in the country.

Gundruk is Nepal's national fermented food — leafy mustard, radish or cauliflower greens packed away to sour, then sun-dried into wiry dark strands that keep for a year. Turned into achar with mustard oil, garlic, chilli and often roasted soybeans, it delivers a deep, funky sourness that nothing else in the Nepali larder matches. Born as a way to preserve the monsoon glut of greens through winter, it is now eaten year-round with dal-bhat, dhido and momo.

Khalpi is fermented cucumber pickle made from bhadaure kankro, the fat russet-skinned Nepali cucumber harvested at the end of the monsoon and left on the vine until fully ripe. Sliced, salted, sun-dried and then packed with mustard oil and spices, it ferments in the jar for a few days into something sour, crunchy and gently fizzy. Nepali families credit it with settling the stomach, and it is one of the most common jars in the kitchen from Asoj through the winter.

Lapsi, the Nepali hog plum, is fiercely sour and grows abundantly around the Kathmandu Valley, and this pickle is its finest use — the boiled fruit pulped and cooked down with mustard oil, fenugreek, chilli and a little sugar into a thick sweet-sour-hot preserve. The same fruit is also dried into the sticky candy strips called titaura that Nepali children grow up on. A jar of lapsi achar is a standard gift from relatives with a tree in the yard.

No plate of momo leaves a Nepali kitchen without this sauce: roasted tomatoes blended with a heavy hand of toasted sesame, garlic, dried chilli and timur into a thick, nutty, tingling red dip. The sesame is what separates it from an ordinary chutney, giving body and a toasted richness that clings to a dumpling. Every stall guards its own ratio, and arguments about whose achar is best are a genuine Kathmandu pastime.

Mula ko achar is a sun-dried, mustard-heavy radish pickle that ferments slowly in the jar until it turns sour, pungent and addictively crunchy. Nepali households make it in bulk when winter radishes flood the markets, dry the batons on the roof for a day or two, then let the jar sit in the sun for a fortnight. It is a staple accompaniment to dal-bhat and one of the best-loved achars in the hills.

Timur ko chhop is the fiery dry condiment built around timur, the Nepali Sichuan pepper that leaves a distinct citrusy tingle and numbness on the tongue. Dried chillies, garlic and timur are toasted and pounded into a coarse red powder, sometimes slackened with mustard oil into a paste. It is dusted over grilled meat, boiled potatoes, chatpate and sukuti, stirred into other achars, or simply eaten with a pinch of salt alongside dal-bhat.