In this insane heat, you need a drink to cool you down. This is a classic Indian drink found all along the West Coast of India.
The two spices added (cardamom, fennel) are quite cooling. The salt is needed to balance the sweet-sour taste and also to act as a restorative in the insanely hot summers when you're sweating out all that salt.
The recipe below basically makes a concentrate. You add ice and dilute the drink with some cold water and drink it. Even though it's not traditional the CC really loves to add seltzer water instead of ice water.
The saffron is non-negotiable. You need it for both the taste and the color. The drink should be this really beautiful yellowish-orange color.
Ingredients
2 raw mangoes (frozen is fine)
1 cup jaggery (substitute by brown sugar)
2 tbsp. cardamom
1 tbsp. fennel
1/2 tbsp. black salt
1 large pinch saffron
Recipe (Panha Pulp)
Note: Raw mangoes are found in the frozen section of most Indian stores.
Cut up the mangoes if you have fresh ones. Otherwise combine the frozen mangoes, the jaggery (or brown sugar) with some water and bring to a boil. Cook for about 12 minutes at medium heat until the mangoes are tender. (You'll only need about 6-7 minutes for the frozen ones).
Meanwhile, combine the cardamom, fennel and black salt and grind to a fine powder in a coffee grinder.
Take the mangoes off the heat and add the spices (including saffron) to it. Let it sit for about 2-3 minutes.
Put the mixture in a blender and blend really fine.
Pass the pulp through a fine sieve and store. This will easily last 2-3 weeks in your refrigerator. More if you freeze it.
Recipe (Panha)
Take 2-3 tbsp. of the panha pulp and combine with ice and cold water. Mix thoroughly and consume. You can add some more salt and/or sugar to taste.
Showing posts with label drinks. Show all posts
Showing posts with label drinks. Show all posts
Monday, July 21, 2014
Thursday, August 21, 2008
Kingsley Amis on Tipple
Amis, who was always seriously committed to the fine art of bibbering (a.k.a. topering), gives us a set of general principles on drink.
As we might expect from the author of the wondrous hangover scene in Lucky Jim, there is more to these aphorisms than meets the ear. They range from the tippling staple ("quantity over quality") to the wickedly acidic (see G.P.5.) Above all, they express a coherent world view (see G.P.7) that distinguish him from the average columnist.
His three pamphlets on the art of the piss-up ("food is the curse of the drinking classes") are well worth checking out.
G.P.1: Up to a point (i.e. short of offering your guests one of those Balkan plonks marketed as wine, Cyprus sherry, poteen and the like), go for quantity rather than quality. Most people would rather have two glasses of ordinary decent port than one of a rare vintage. On the same reasoning, give them big drinks rather than small -- with exceptions to be noted later. Serious drinkers will be pleased and reassured, unserious ones will not be offended, and you will use up less chatting time going around to recharge glasses.
G.P.2: Any drink traditionally accompanied by a bit of fruit or vegetable is worth trying with a spot of the juice thrown in as well.
G.P.3: It is more important that a cold drink be as cold as possible than that it should be as concentrated as possible.
G.P.4: For any liquor that is going to be mixed with fruit juices, vegetable juices, etc., sweetening, strongly flavored cordials and the like, go for the cheapest reliable article. Do not waste your Russian or Polish vodka, etc.
G.P.5: The alcohol in any bubbly drink will reach you faster than in its still version. Hence, or partly hence, the popularity of champagne at weddings and other festivities.
G.P.6: With drinks containing fruit (other than the decorative or olfactory slice of lemon, orange, etc.) it is really worthwhile to soak the fruit in some of the liquor for at least three hours beforehand.
G.P.7: Never despise a drink because it is easy to make and/or uses commercial mixes. Unquestioning devotion to authenticity is, in any department of life, a mark of the naïve -- or worse.
G.P.8: Careful preparation will render a poor wine just tolerable and a fine wine excellent. Skimping it will diminish a pretty fair wine to all right and a superb wine to merely bloody good. That is about as much difference as it will make. Much more important is price, which is normally a very reliable indicator of quality.
G.P.9: He who truly believes he has a hangover has no hangover.
G.P.10: Everything fattens you.
As we might expect from the author of the wondrous hangover scene in Lucky Jim, there is more to these aphorisms than meets the ear. They range from the tippling staple ("quantity over quality") to the wickedly acidic (see G.P.5.) Above all, they express a coherent world view (see G.P.7) that distinguish him from the average columnist.
His three pamphlets on the art of the piss-up ("food is the curse of the drinking classes") are well worth checking out.
G.P.1: Up to a point (i.e. short of offering your guests one of those Balkan plonks marketed as wine, Cyprus sherry, poteen and the like), go for quantity rather than quality. Most people would rather have two glasses of ordinary decent port than one of a rare vintage. On the same reasoning, give them big drinks rather than small -- with exceptions to be noted later. Serious drinkers will be pleased and reassured, unserious ones will not be offended, and you will use up less chatting time going around to recharge glasses.
G.P.2: Any drink traditionally accompanied by a bit of fruit or vegetable is worth trying with a spot of the juice thrown in as well.
G.P.3: It is more important that a cold drink be as cold as possible than that it should be as concentrated as possible.
G.P.4: For any liquor that is going to be mixed with fruit juices, vegetable juices, etc., sweetening, strongly flavored cordials and the like, go for the cheapest reliable article. Do not waste your Russian or Polish vodka, etc.
G.P.5: The alcohol in any bubbly drink will reach you faster than in its still version. Hence, or partly hence, the popularity of champagne at weddings and other festivities.
G.P.6: With drinks containing fruit (other than the decorative or olfactory slice of lemon, orange, etc.) it is really worthwhile to soak the fruit in some of the liquor for at least three hours beforehand.
G.P.7: Never despise a drink because it is easy to make and/or uses commercial mixes. Unquestioning devotion to authenticity is, in any department of life, a mark of the naïve -- or worse.
G.P.8: Careful preparation will render a poor wine just tolerable and a fine wine excellent. Skimping it will diminish a pretty fair wine to all right and a superb wine to merely bloody good. That is about as much difference as it will make. Much more important is price, which is normally a very reliable indicator of quality.
G.P.9: He who truly believes he has a hangover has no hangover.
G.P.10: Everything fattens you.
Saturday, June 21, 2008
Friday, May 30, 2008
Down and Across : A Wobbly Old Time
Copyright © 2001, James T. Ehler (published with permission.)Across
1. Popular carbonated beverage.
4. A polite drink.
7. French syrup.
8. Robust red "masculine" Bordeaux.
15. Important red Bordeaux.
17. Hot or cold alcoholic drink containing beaten egg.
18. Aromatic blackcurrant liqueur.
19. "The milk of our Lady."
22. Liquor and water with sugar and spices served hot.
23. Greek wine flavored with resin.
24. Partly fermented grape juice.
Down
1. Tea.
2. City southeast of Turin noted for its sparkling wines.
3. Found in combination with:: water, oil, attar, hips.
5. Turkish brandy.
6. Fermented alcoholic beverage similar to but heavier than beer.
9. Part of Poe tale title.
10. Wine, spiced with sugar, lemons and nutmeg, named for an English army officer.
11. Spanish city, grape, wine, and raisin.
12. Original version of a British citrus drink.
13. Whiskey, bitters and sugar with fruit slices.
14. Sweet liqueur made from wine and brandy flavored with plum, peach or apricot kernels and/or almonds.
16. Distilled French wine.
20. Chief ingredient of black bread.
21. Booze slang adapted from small Alaskan Tlingit tribe, the Hutsnuwu.
22. High, Irish or breakfast.
23. Popular Caribbean alcoholic beverage.
Monday, January 7, 2008
Friday, November 9, 2007
Special-ized Equipment
A martini maker.
Now the CC has seen everything.
It's "special" alright, just like the Special Olympics!
A martini is not exactly hard to make as the recipe here points out. Of course, we've seen our share of silly ideas like here.
Friday, May 4, 2007
Buñuel's Martini
Anyone who knows the CC knows that he loves his martinis, and anybody who knows the CC knows that the CC loves the movies of the surrealist, Buñuel.
This then is Luis Buñuel's martini. The CC is convinced that Buñuel wasn't just a perfectionist in his movies.
To provoke, or sustain, a reverie in a bar, you have to drink English gin, especially in the form of the dry martini. To be frank, given the primordial role in my life played by the dry martini, I think I really ought to give it at least a page. Like all cocktails, the martini, composed essentially of gin and a few drops of Noilly Prat, seems to have been an American invention. Connoisseurs who like their martinis very dry suggest simply allowing a ray of sunlight to shine through a bottle of Noilly Prat before it hits the bottle of gin. At a certain period in America it was said that the making of a dry martini should resemble the Immaculate Conception, for, as Saint Thomas Aquinas once noted, the generative power of the Holy Ghost pierced the Virgin's hymen "like a ray of sunlight through a window-leaving it unbroken."
Another crucial recommendation is that the ice be so cold and hard that it won't melt, since nothing's worse than a watery martini. For those who are still with me, let me give you my personal recipe, the fruit of long experimentation and guaranteed to produce perfect results. The day before your guests arrive, put all the ingredients -- glasses, gin, and shaker -- in the refrigerator. Use a thermometer to make sure the ice is about twenty degrees below zero (centigrade). Don't take anything out until your friends arrive; then pour a few drops of Noilly Prat and half a demitasse spoon of Angostura bitters over the ice. Stir it, then pour it out, keeping only the ice, which retains a faint taste of both. Then pour straight gin over the ice, stir it again, and serve.
This then is Luis Buñuel's martini. The CC is convinced that Buñuel wasn't just a perfectionist in his movies.
To provoke, or sustain, a reverie in a bar, you have to drink English gin, especially in the form of the dry martini. To be frank, given the primordial role in my life played by the dry martini, I think I really ought to give it at least a page. Like all cocktails, the martini, composed essentially of gin and a few drops of Noilly Prat, seems to have been an American invention. Connoisseurs who like their martinis very dry suggest simply allowing a ray of sunlight to shine through a bottle of Noilly Prat before it hits the bottle of gin. At a certain period in America it was said that the making of a dry martini should resemble the Immaculate Conception, for, as Saint Thomas Aquinas once noted, the generative power of the Holy Ghost pierced the Virgin's hymen "like a ray of sunlight through a window-leaving it unbroken."
Another crucial recommendation is that the ice be so cold and hard that it won't melt, since nothing's worse than a watery martini. For those who are still with me, let me give you my personal recipe, the fruit of long experimentation and guaranteed to produce perfect results. The day before your guests arrive, put all the ingredients -- glasses, gin, and shaker -- in the refrigerator. Use a thermometer to make sure the ice is about twenty degrees below zero (centigrade). Don't take anything out until your friends arrive; then pour a few drops of Noilly Prat and half a demitasse spoon of Angostura bitters over the ice. Stir it, then pour it out, keeping only the ice, which retains a faint taste of both. Then pour straight gin over the ice, stir it again, and serve.
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