ACAR CINA or CHINESE PICKLES

I wonder why it is called Chinese pickles in my recipe book. I have never seen it in Chinese cooking. At a wedding my family attended on Sunday, this vegetable dish was served. It is actually a Malay dish normally served at weddings. Perhaps the Malays adapted it from a Chinese recipe.

The ingredients are:
1 cucumber(remove the core), 5 strands of long beans (French beans if you cannot find long beans), 1 carrot, all cut into 5 cm strips.
2 fresh red chillies, 2 fresh green chillies, split halfway into 4
5 shallots, cut into 2, or 2 onions,cut into 4

To be grounded:
4 fresh red chillies,
5 cloves garlic
2.5 cm ginger
3 shallots

Other ingredients:
1 tsp mustard seed
a handful of oil-free toasted sesame seeds
4 tbsp vinegar
2 tbsp sugar
a liitle salt
3 tbsp oil

Heat oil and fry the grounded ingredients in a saucepan till fragrant. Add vinegar, sugar and salt. Add the vegetables and cook quickly but not for too long so that the vegetables remain crunchy. Remove from the heat and sprinkle the sesame seeds.