Soh Khleh: A Fragrant Khasi Fruit Salad with Citrus and Mustard
A winter ritual in the Khasi community involves the warm sun and the refreshing tang of orange that goes into making this delicious citrus salad, eaten after a heavy meal. Janice Pariat shares her recipe.
In Amy Schmidt’s poem “Abundance,” you learn that it is impossible to be lonely when you’re zesting an orange. “Scrape the soft rind once,” she says, “and the whole room fills with fruit.” What about when you peel an entire orange? I’d say it fills the whole world.
This is what it feels like to eat oranges in the winter sun in Shillong: The sky blue as the ocean. The air crisp and cold. The warmth hitting your face, your back. And fruit like soft golden drops in your hand. Eating oranges in the sun is a ritual we uphold most consistently every winter; we’ve done so for as long as I can remember. And every so often, on a Sunday, the Christmas holidays, this small, simple treat turns into one that’s a little more elaborate. We conjure up ‘soh khleh’ or ‘fruit mix’.
Of course it cannot be just any fruit. We mean specifically citrus winter fruit.
On the streets of Shillong, you’ll often come across kongs (Khasi women) selling an array of healthy snacks in their baskets—pineapple slices, soh ot (winter chestnuts), soh phlang (an edible wild tuber), soh liang (wild nut). My favourite offerings are the slices of local orange with a dash of salt and a sprinkle of sohmynken dung (hand-ground chili). This is the simplest version of soh khleh. Quick and easy. Especially refreshing after a heavy meaty winter meal.
At home, though, your fruit mix could expand to include jewel-pink soh bah (pomelo), tart grapefruit, grated soh phoh Khasi (indigenous pear) with its sharply sweet and astringent-y flavour, pungent tyrso (mustard leaves), soh jew Khasi (indigenous lemon), and even a drizzle of raw mustard oil. Soh khleh lends itself to many variations, and every household across Shillong and beyond will have their own favourite mix of ingredients. Some add soh pyrshong or tangy star fruit, others freshly ground local pepper.
Our recipe at home has routinely been quite simple. Diced orange, sweet, tart, fresh as the winter sun, along with slivered mustard leaves, mustard oil, and salt and chilli to taste. And — we believe this is a must— soh phoh Khasi. The fruit needs to be peeled, the tyrso sliced, the soh jew diced, the pear peeled and grated, and all this activity usually involves everyone in the family. I remember making this fruit mix with my grandmother on the backyard steps, and others joining in — my aunt, and sister, my mum, the daily workers, sometimes a visiting friend. The air fills with chatter and the crisp, zesty scent of the soh khleh; your fingers are a mess, there’s juice running everywhere; the colours of the fruits glow yellow-pink-gold in the bowl and finally when it all comes together, the soh khleh sits delightfully fresh and fragrant on your tongue. We are not a region of fancy cooked or baked desserts—and this, this is sheer joy.
RECIPE FOR SOH KHLEH
Ingredients
2 oranges
1/2 small pomelo
2 Khasi pears
1 bunch of mustard leaves
1 Khasi lemon (optional)
1 grapefruit (optional)
1 star fruit (optional)
1 tablespoon raw mustard oil
Salt and ground chilli to taste
Method
Peel and deseed the oranges, pomelo, and lemon, and place the pulp into a generously sized bowl.
Add the peeled and grated Khasi pear.
Thinly slice the mustard leaves and add to the bowl.
Add salt and ground chilli to taste, along with raw mustard oil.
Mix well together, preferably with your hands.
Sit in the sun, and savour slowly.
Janice Pariat is an author and storyteller. Her latest book, Everything the Light Touches, (winner of the 2023 AutHer Award for Fiction & Longlisted for the 2023 JCB Prize), is available here.
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