What two thousand years of food history forgot to tell you about the oil in your jar.
Stop for a moment and think about what happens when you finish a jar of our saltfish padda.
You spoon out the last of the chunky fish spread. You get most of the spices. And then you do what almost everyone does: you tip the jar over the sink and watch a dark, fragrant, deeply spiced oil drain away.
What you just poured down the drain is worth more than you think, and to us, is worth its weight in gold!
The fifth taste
Umami is the word the world has settled on for the fifth taste, the one that sits alongside sweet, sour, salty, and bitter. The Japanese chemist Kikunae Ikeda named it in 1908, after he became fixated on the peculiar depth of flavour in dashi, the Japanese soup stock made from seaweed. He identified the molecule responsible: glutamic acid. The same molecule, in the form of glutamates, is what makes aged Parmesan taste more like Parmesan, what makes a ripe tomato taste more like a tomato, what makes a good stock taste more like a meal.
Umami does not add a flavour of its own. It amplifies the flavours already in the dish.
And saltfish, the preserved and dried fish that sits at the heart of Kerala fish pickle, is one of the most glutamate-rich ingredients on earth.
Here is why that matters.
What salt does to fish
When fish is preserved with salt, something precise happens at a molecular level. The salt draws out moisture and shuts down the bacterial activity that would otherwise cause spoilage. But it does not stop the fish's own natural enzymes from working. Those enzymes continue breaking down the fish's proteins into their component amino acids, slowly and steadily, over weeks and months.
The amino acid they produce in the greatest abundance is glutamic acid.
This is the same process that makes fish sauce one of the most powerful flavour agents in any kitchen. It is the same process the Romans understood, two thousand years before the word umami existed. Roman garum, the fermented fish condiment traded across the entire Mediterranean world and used in nearly 350 recipes recorded by the epicure Apicius, was built on exactly this principle: fish, salt, and time, combined to produce a concentrated liquid of almost impossible savouriness.
<cite index="31">Natural enzymes present in the fish broke down proteins into amino acids, especially glutamates, which created the intense umami flavour that made garum so popular.</cite>
Garum was the ancient world's answer to a question every serious cook eventually asks: how do you make everything taste more like itself?
The answer has always been the same. Preserved fish.
The sequence that most people get wrong
Oil is a remarkable solvent for fat-soluble flavour compounds. When you cook anything aromatic in oil, the oil absorbs it. The sulphur compounds from garlic, the capsaicin from chilli, the volatile aromatics from ginger and cumin: all of them dissolve into the fat and stay there, even after the ingredient itself is long gone.
This is the basic principle behind every infused oil on earth, from a rosemary-steeped olive oil to a Sichuan chili oil. And it is the principle at work in the oil at the bottom of your jar of Charlie's Pickles.
What makes that oil different is the sequence.
Most people, when they imagine making a spiced oil, assume the spices go in first. That is how most Indian and South Asian cooking works: heat the oil, add the aromatics, build the flavour base, then add everything else.
In the making of our Saltfish Padda, the fish goes in first.
The saltfish, already glutamate-rich from its preservation process, is finely chopped, desalted, and dried, then fried to a crisp in the high oleic sunflower oil. As it fries, two things happen simultaneously. The heat drives off remaining moisture and concentrates the fish's flavour. And the Maillard reaction, the same browning process that gives a well-seared steak its crust and a good piece of toast its depth, produces hundreds of new aromatic compounds inside the hot oil. Many of those compounds are fat-soluble. They stay in the oil when the fish is lifted out and set aside.
The oil, at this point, is already carrying the full umami imprint of fried saltfish. It is primed.
The three rounds
The fried fish is set aside. The oil remains.
Into that fish-primed oil goes the spice paste: fresh garlic and fresh ginger, ground together, combined with chilli powder and cumin. This is the second infusion, and it is different from a standard spice-in-oil infusion in one important respect. The spice paste is not entering plain oil. It is entering oil that has already absorbed a full round of fish glutamates and Maillard browning compounds. The spices do not simply flavour the oil. They marry into a medium that is already carrying the fish's character. The result is a combined flavour that neither element alone could produce.
Once the spice paste is fragrant and cooked through, the fried fish goes back in. The heat goes off. A mixture of vinegar and sugar is added. Everything is combined and left to rest for twenty-four hours.
This is the third infusion.
During the rest, the oil continues to absorb from everything surrounding it. The returned fish, the vinegar's acidity, the sugar's balance, the residual heat of the cooling mixture. Nothing evaporates. Everything integrates. The oil that emerges from twenty-four hours of rest carries three complete rounds of flavour transfer: the fish fry, the spice paste, and the long slow marriage of everything combined.
The jar label says "double infused oil." That is, if anything, an understatement. The process has three distinct stages, each building on the one before it.
What Kerala cooks have always known
Traditional Kerala fish pickle recipes have a consistent instruction that most people outside the tradition miss entirely.
Make sure the oil layer is on top.
In every meen achar recipe, the oil is treated as part of the preservation system, yes, but also as something worth protecting in its own right. Kerala cooks spoon it back over the fish as the jar is packed. They top it up if there is not enough. They press the fish pieces down so the oil rises above them.
This is not incidental. It reflects a centuries-old understanding that the oil in a fish pickle is not a byproduct. It is a co-product. Something that develops alongside the fish and carries as much flavour as the fish itself by the time the jar reaches the table.
The Romans understood this. Kerala cooks have always understood this.
The question is whether you understand it the next time you open a jar.
Two products, one jar
What you are holding when you hold a jar of spiced fish pickle is this:
A chunky, spiced fish spread on top. Salty, sharp with vinegar, warm with chilli and cumin. The thing you spoon onto rice or toast or eggs.
And underneath it, an oil that has been through three separate rounds of flavour absorption. Glutamates from the fish fry. Aromatic compounds from the spice paste frying in fish-primed oil. A twenty-four hour integration rest where vinegar and sugar bring everything into balance. Garlic and ginger and chilli and cumin and the deep savoury presence of preserved fish, all of it concentrated into a liquid that is fully finished, fully flavoured, and entirely ready to use.
Drizzle it. Cook with it. Stir it through noodles. Spoon it over a soft-boiled egg. Use it as the base of a vinaigrette. Do not let it drain away.
Two umami bombs. One jar.
The Romans spent two thousand years figuring out that the liquid around preserved fish is as precious as the fish itself. The principle arrived in Amsterdam in a 150g jar. The label calls it double infused. The process says otherwise.
At Charlie's Pickles, we make the oil the way this recipe has always been made: fish first, spices second, rest third. Three rounds. Each one building on the previous. The jar you open contains two things. Most people find one. The ones who find both tend to order another jar before the first one is finished.
THINGS WORTH KNOWING
What is umami?
Umami is the fifth basic taste, alongside sweet, sour, salty, and bitter. It was identified and named by Japanese chemist Kikunae Ikeda in 1908, who discovered that the distinctive depth of flavour in dashi came from glutamic acid, a naturally occurring amino acid. Foods rich in glutamates — aged cheese, ripe tomatoes, fish sauce, preserved fish, and fermented ingredients — trigger specific taste receptors on the tongue that signal savoury depth. Umami does not add a flavour of its own; it amplifies the other flavours already present in a dish.
Why is saltfish particularly rich in umami?
Saltfish is fish that has been preserved through salting and drying. The preservation process uses salt to inhibit bacterial growth while allowing the fish's natural enzymes to continue breaking down proteins into amino acids, particularly glutamic acid, in a process known as autolysis. This is the same mechanism that makes fish sauce, aged parmesan, and fermented condiments so flavour-dense. The longer the preservation period, the greater the concentration of glutamates. Saltfish is among the most glutamate-rich ingredients available, which is why a small amount delivers a disproportionate depth of savoury flavour.
What is the Maillard reaction and why does it matter here?
The Maillard reaction is a chemical reaction between amino acids and sugars that occurs when food is exposed to heat above approximately 140°C. It is responsible for the browning and flavour development in fried, roasted, and baked foods. When saltfish is fried in oil during the Charlie's Pickles production process, the Maillard reaction produces hundreds of new aromatic compounds in the hot oil. Many of these compounds are fat-soluble and remain in the oil after the fish is removed, contributing to the oil's first round of flavour infusion alongside the fish's glutamates.
What is a triple-infused oil?
A triple-infused oil is an oil that has undergone three distinct rounds of flavour absorption. In the Charlie's Pickles process, the first infusion occurs when finely chopped saltfish is fried in the high oleic sunflower oil, transferring glutamates and Maillard browning compounds into the oil. The second infusion occurs when a spice paste of fresh garlic, fresh ginger, chilli powder, and cumin is fried in that already fish-primed oil. The third infusion occurs during a twenty-four hour rest period, during which the returned fish, vinegar, and sugar continue to steep and integrate into the oil. The result is an oil carrying three complete rounds of flavour transfer.
What was garum?
Garum was the fermented fish sauce that served as the primary condiment and flavour base of the Roman Empire, from the first century BCE through the fall of Rome. It was made by salting fish and allowing natural enzymes to break down proteins into glutamates, producing a liquid of concentrated savoury depth. The Roman epicure Apicius recorded nearly 350 recipes calling for garum. Food historians consider it the ancient world's equivalent of fish sauce, and its rediscovery as a fine dining ingredient has been ongoing since the early 2000s. The same glutamate-producing principle behind garum is at work in any well-made fish pickle and in the oil that results from it.
How do you use the oil in a jar of Charlie's Pickles?
The oil in a jar of Charlie's Pickles has undergone three rounds of flavour infusion: a fish fry, a spice paste fry in fish-primed oil, and a twenty-four hour integration rest with vinegar and sugar. It works as a finishing drizzle over rice, noodles, eggs, or grilled meat. It can be used as a cooking base for stir-fries or fried rice. A small amount stirred into a vinaigrette or spooned over a soft-boiled egg delivers a concentrated hit of spice and umami that a plain or single-infused oil cannot replicate. Use a clean spoon to decant the oil before the jar is empty. Do not pour it away.
What is the difference between the oil and the fish spread in a jar of Charlie's Pickles?
Charlie's Pickles contains two distinct usable components. The chunky spread consists of crispy saltfish pieces returned to the jar after frying, carrying the direct flavour of the preserved and fried fish alongside vinegar and spice. The oil is the liquid medium that has passed through three infusion stages: the fish fry, the spice paste, and the integration rest. The spread is the primary condiment: spoon it onto food. The oil is the secondary condiment: drizzle it, cook with it, or use it as a flavour base. Both deliver umami depth; the oil delivers it in a more versatile, liquid format suitable for a wider range of cooking applications.
