Mirapakayalu/Chillies are part of Andhra cuisine. We get two varieties of them one is fresh green ones and the other is dried red ones. They not only use them in their daily cuisine but also love to have them in the form of Majjiga Mirapakayalu/Curd Chillies/Challa Mirapakayalu.
They are the best accompaniment for Andhra style mudda pappu/Plain Dal. November to January is the season to have chillies to make curd chillies. We get two varieties of them one light green and the other a little dark. Darker chillies are a bit spicy and lighter ones less spicy. We should pick the chillies according to our taste. Making them is required a simple process of one week to ten days.

Ingredients:

Green chillies - 1/2 kg/500 grms
Sour Buttermilk - 500 ml
Salt - to taste

Procedure:

Wash green chilles thoroughly. Wipe and dry them for 2 hours.
Keeping the stalks and also ends intact slit them vertically with a safety pin. We can also use sharp edged tomato knife to cut them. No need to remove the seeds. Be careful while cutting them.

In a big vessel take buttermilk, add salt. Mix it well. Add the chillies.

Cover and marinate them for 2 days.Mix them once in a day. The buttermilk and chillies both change their texture and colour.
After two days of soaking, squeeze them (keeping the buttermilk separately) with the hands and put them to dry under the sun till evening.
In the evening drop them in the buttermilk. The chillies absorbs the buttermilk. Repeat the above process till the chillies absorbs the entire buttermilk. It may take 3 to 5 days or less than that.
Dry the chillies for some more days till they become as given in the picture below.