Almond Saffron Drink/Badam Kesar ka Sharbat

With Holi, the indian festival of colours just round the corner, I thought about making Thandai - but after pondering over it for a while, I thought I should do something different this year for Holi. So the next idea was to make this rich almond-saffron drink or badam-kesar ka sharbat.

As the name suggests, the star ingredients of this drink are almonds and saffron. I like to use saffron very generously (I am a bit of a Saffron afficionado), but of course you can reduce the quantity of saffron if you are not fond of an intense saffron aroma.

The shelf life of this syrup at room temperature is around a month, if you live in a warm country then I would suggest to put the syrup in the refrigerator.

Ingredients

100 grams - almonds, soaked overnight

1170 grams - sugar

1 1/2 cup - water + to make almond milk

3/4 tsp - cardamom powder

1/2 gram - saffron 

1 tsp + 1/2 tsp - rose water

Method

1. Blanch the almonds. Grind the blanched almonds using some water. Sieve/press through a muslin cloth and extract the liquid and keep aside. Do not throw the leftover/residue.
2. Put the residue back into the mixer and grind using little water and sieve/press again. Repeat this process one more time.
3. Soak the saffron in 1/2 tsp of rose water and keep for half an hour.
4. Add the suagr and 1 1/2 cup of water in a deep vessel and cook on high flame, until the sugar dissolves. Remove the dirt if any with the help of a spoon. 
5. Add the almond milk and let it come to a boil(be careful as it will splutter a lot) Reduce the heat to medium and cook for approx 3-4 minutes. Remove the vessel from the heat.
6. After 5-7 minutes, add the soaked saffron, cardamom powder and 1 tsp of rose water and mix. Cover the vessel and let it cool.
7. Store in glass jars when completely cool.
8. To serve: Add 2 tsp of sharbat or according to your taste (if you want it sweeter or less sweet), to 250 ml of chilled milk. Give it a whiz in the blender and serve. Alternately, whiz 2 tsp of sharbat, a little vanilla icecream and some soda in a blender and serve immediately. Tastes simply awesome.

Note

If you notice sugar crystals in the sugar syrup, first transfer the non crystallised part into another glass jar and than add a little hot water to the remaining syrup. Let it cool completely before storing in a glass jar.

Enjoy!

Summery Saffron Drink

For the last 15 days, we have been enjoying food like never before, and it is becoming quite visible on my waistline ;-). My in-laws are visiting, and my mother in law and I have been busy cooking a wide variety of dishes - I am learning to cook loads of traditional dishes from her. And, of course my recipe collection is increasing :-) She taught me some traditional Rajasthani sweet dishes, pickles, appetizers etc etc etc. 

This here is also a recipe I have just learnt from her. It's a very refreshing, rich and summery drink. Can be made in a jiffy and has a shelf-life of 6 months (only in the theoretical case that you manage not to finish it off before then!) Saffron is my favourite spice, and for me, any dish /drink/dessert with saffron is more than welcome. I love saffron. Infact, my mom always teases me that if I had my way, I would make a curry with just saffron in it.

This drink tastes good with soda, sparkling water, plain water as well as with a shot of Wodka. I served it with a few crushed sprigs of mountain mint / Calamint (an intense variety of mint) and it was really refreshing. Of course, normal mint is just as good.

Ingredients

6 cups - sugar

2 cups - water

1 gram - saffron strands

3/4 th tsp - rose water

mountain mint/ calamint to garnish 

Method

1. Put the sugar and the water in a big vessel and cook on high flame, stirring continously. Remove the sugar dirt, if any, with the help of a spoon. Bring the sugar syrup to a boil. Reduce the heat to medium and cook further for appx 2 mins. Remove from the heat.
2. Let it cool slightly for around 5 minutes.
3. Grind the saffron with the rose water lightly with a mortar and pestle.
4. Put the saffron mix in the sugar syrup. Cover the vessel for 10 minutes.
5. Store in glass jars when completely cool.

Tip

If you notice sugar crystals in the sugar syrup, first transfer the non crystallised part into another glass jar and than add a little hot water to the remaining syrup. Let it cool completely before storing in a glass jar.

Enjoy!

Almond Mint Drink

The weather in this part of the world is pretty decent these days, warm and sunny, with interspersed bouts of clouds and some rain. Both my husband and I spend our free time, whenever we can, in our small garden. Last Sunday, when we were having our evening tea and enjoying the nice sunny day in the garden, we suddenly saw a reddish-brownish flurry of movement - it was a large squirrel, a cute little furry thing, on about its search for nuts and other eatables. It hopped about from one place to another and inspected our garden. And finally found something to eat and decided to stay still for a minute in one place...Quicker than the squirrel, my hubby ran off to get the camera, to capture this beautiful little thing. He did manage to get a few good photos. 

 Isn't it cute? :-) 

This drink was made one such warm sunny day last week and was indeed quite refreshing. A perfect way to beat the heat. 

The mint and almond combination in a drink is unique in it's own way and the taste is great. Thanks to my mom for this recipe - moms are the best cooks, aren't they?

Ingredients

1/2 cup - mint leaves, chopped

1/8 cup - almonds

3 pieces - cloves

3 pieces - cardamom

1 1/2 tbsp - sugar (adjust according to your taste)

1 1/2 cup - water + a little to soak

almond slivers to garnish

Method

1. Soak together the almonds, cloves and cardamom for 3-4 hours.
2. Remove the water. 
3. Grind together the almonds, cloves, cardamom, mint leaves and sugar using  some water. 
4. Sieve/press through a muslin cloth and extract all the liquid and keep aside. Reserve the residue.
5. Put the residue back into the mixer and grind again using little water and sieve again.
6. Put the drink in the refrigerator to chill.
7. Garnish the drink with the almond slivers and serve.

Serves : 2

Enjoy!

Rose Drink... and Germany Wins, Waka Waka eh eh!

What an exciting game it was...the german fans just went crazy. The sounds of victory were everywhere - horns blowing, people shouting, vuvuzelas blowing. Germany won 4:1 against England.


I cheered and shouted and shouted and cheered some more - the result is a bad throat...but what the heck, We Won!!!! Now, another big game is on next Saturday, Germany vs Argentina.

For the last few days, I have been continuously humming the official FIFA World Cup song. Its so catchy and peppy. I loved the video as well, especially the little girl in blue, towards the end of the video. She is simply the best in the whole video, so cute and innocent and her expressions are to die for :-) You can have a look here.




The meaning and the history behind the song "Waka Waka" can be found here.

On the food front, I made a very quick and easy drink. Its a favourite summer drink at my place. When I was a kid, I would often visit my native place Rajasthan during the summers. And Rajasthan Summers are really harsh, so to beat the heat, mom would make this quick drink, which we all loved. 

Ingredients

150 grams - rose petal spread (gulkand) for more details see here

1 litre - water

250 ml - sparkling water

sugar if required

Method

1. Mix well the gulkand and the water in a jar. Let it chill in the refrigerator for 2-3 hours. Mix the liquid once again and strain with the help of a sieve. 
2. Fill 3/4 th of the glass with gulkand water and then pour some sparkling water into the glass.
3. Serve immediately. 

Sparkling water is optional. The drink tastes good without the sparkling water as well. If you want a low sweet drink, add a half glass gulkand water and half glass sparkling water.

Serves  5 

Not only does this drink look good and taste good, it is also very healthy for the tummy during summer.

Enjoy!

Hot Chocolate

I might have mentioned it once or twice or a thousand times - I am a chocoholic.

And one of the best ways to satisfy the chocolate addiction is in the form of hot chocolate. Thick, rich, dark, piping hot chocolate. mmmmmm...The darker the better, the thicker the better, the richer the better. And I think the use of honey adds a special flavour / aroma to the whole which plain old sugar cannot match. Of course, the dark part depends on your taste, so you can use less dark or milk chocolate as well. My husband sometimes prefers even a white chocolate, but thats somehow not my cuppa tea (to use a mixed metaphor!)

And when its cold and raining outside (as it is now) - there's nothing better to warm me up than a cup of hot chocolate, cooped up warmly in my bed under a thick blanket with a nice book and soft music playing in the background.

I hope you enjoy your hot choc as much as I did mine :-)

Ingredients

100 gram - dark chocolate 80 % 

1 1/2 cup -  hot water

4 tsp - honey (adjust according to your taste)

2 tsp - cream

Method

1. Melt the chocolate with honey on a double boiler
2. Add the hot water to the melted chocolate and blend well. Cook for 2-3 minutes, add the cream and cook again for a couple of minutes, stirring continuously.
3. Serve immediately.

Serves  2

Enjoy!

Thandai

Holi is the Indian festival of colours, marking the end of winter and the beginning of spring. It is the favourite festival of the year for kids across large parts of India - they play around throwing water and coloured powder on each other.

It is also the time (as any other time of the year) for lots of special recipes - and moms are on overdrive the few days before Holi.

The temperatures are on the rise, and the ideal drink of the season is something which can be drunk cool - but has enough "hot" ingredients in case the weather remains inclement. This ideal mix is the Thandai - the very name signifies "cool".

Thandai can be drunk either fresh, or as a syrup which one can mix any time with milk - this is the syrup variant, which has the advantage that it can be stored for a couple of weeks upto a couple of months (highly unlikely that you actually reach the couple of months stage, as it is also very yummy!)

Special thanks to my mother-in-law for this very special recipe and to all of you out there - a very happy Holi!

Ingredients 


1/4 cup - almonds, soaked overnight


to be soaked together overnight

1 tbsp heaped - poppy seeds, khuskhus
1 tbsp heaped - dried melon seeds, magaj

to be ground together and soaked overnight in 1/4 th cup water

1/2 tbsp - green cardamom
1/2 tbsp - whole black pepper

1 tbsp - fennel seeds, saunf


2 cups - sugar
2 cups - muscovado sugar( since I ran out of sugar so I used muscovado)
1 1/4 cup - water 
2 tbsp - rose petal spread, gulkand
25-30 strands - saffron
1 tsp - rose water, gulabjal
a generous pinch of cardamom powder
a generous pinch of pepper powder


Method 

1. Blanch the almonds. Grind together the blanched almonds, poppy seeds and melon seeds using very little water. Sieve/press through a muslin cloth and extract all the liquid and keep aside. ( you can use the residue in any gravy)
2. Add the 2 tbsp of rose petal spread to the ground cardamom-pepper-fennel mixture and mix well. Sieve/press through a muslin cloth and extract all the liquid and keep aside. Discard the residue.
3. Mix both the extracted liquids and keep aside. ( I got approx 1 cup of extracted liquid)
4. Add the 4 cups of sugar and 1 1/4th cup of water in a deep sauce pan and cook until the sugar dissolves. Bring to boil and simmer for a couple of minutes. Remove from the heat and let it cool for a minute and then add the extracted liquid to it.
5. Retransfer to the heat and boil on a high flame for a minute and then further simmer for 5-7 minutes, stirring continously. (be careful at this stage as it may splutter) 
6. Remove from the heat and cool till warm and then add the saffron strands, cardamom powder, pepper powder and rose water and mix well.
7. If sugar crystals are formed in the thandai while cooling down, add 1/2 - 3/4 cup of boiling water and mix well. 
8. When the thandai completely cools down and has no sugar crystals then transfer to a sterilised bottle.

Add 2 tsp of thandai syrup in a cup of  milk and mix well. Garnish with almonds and pistachio and serve chilled. 

Enjoy!