Masala Milk/ Masala Doodh
Kojagiri Purnima (also know as Sharad Purnima) always held a special place in my heart. Till recently, I would love to stay up late. I could easily survive on 3-4 hours of sleep every night. My Aai (mom) of course did not appreciate this habit of mine and used to lecture me on on the lines of "Early to bed, early to rise....". But on this one day she used to ask us to stay up till midnight at least and I was always willing to oblige! 😂It is believed that Goddess Lakshmi visit our home on Kojagiri night to check " Ko Jagrati?" meaning "Who is still up?" and blesses everyone who are awake.
All the kids in our colony used to plan a night out on our building terrace. We used to call it "Kojagiri cha Jagaran". It may not necessarily be on the actual Kojagiri Purnima night but sometime around Kojagiri, after all the kids were done with their semester exams and were ready to enjoy the Diwali break. It also was our official meeting to plan for the Killa (it is a tradition in Maharashtra to build small fort using stones, brick pieces and mud, and decorate it for Diwali)!
We used to plan for Bhel puri, some other snacks depending on the money on hand and someones mom used to provide us all with Masala Milk. I never liked the texture of Malai in milk. One reason why I avoided Basundi as a kid (now I blend it to make it homogeneous 😁). But it was fun to have Masala Milk with my friends. Even today, Masala milk brings back those beautiful memories....
Sharing a recipe for Masala Milk today and dedicating it to all our moms who happily prepared this flavorful milk beverage for us and made that one night each year so much more fun and memorable for us! This Kojagiri night, I am sitting on my desk, feeling nostalgic while writing this blog and sharing a small memory from my past and also a yummy recipe for the Masala Milk!
Ingredients-
1 and half tablespoon Almonds (around 12-14)
1 and half tablespoon Pistachios (around 22-25)
1 table spoon Cashew nuts
1 teaspoon Saffron/ Kesar threads
Seeds on 4-5 Cardamoms
A small piece of Nutmeg
2 tablespoon Sugar
2 tablespoon Milk powder
1 litre Milk
3/4 cup of Sugar
- Heat a flat pan on low heat. Add Almonds, Pistachios and Cashews to it and dry roast for 4-5 minutes till they are very lightly toasted but have not changed the color.
- Remove it in a bowl or the blender jar bowl and let it cool down. This process of dry roasting the nuts make them crunchy and easy to grind.
- Once the nuts have cooled down, add them to the blender jar if not already done. Add the seeds of 4-5 cardamoms and a small piece of nutmeg.
- Add 2 tablespoon sugar and 2 tablespoon of milk powder. Add 1 teaspoon of saffron threads and blend it all together in a blender. It will fetch us around 6-7 tablespoon of Milk Masala powder. Keep it aside.
- In a thick bottom pan, take 1 litre milk and bring it to boil. Stir continuously to make sure that milk does not stick to the bottom of the pan and start burning as that will spoil the taste of the milk.
- Once it starts boiling, continue boiling till milk starts to reduce. It depends on the quality of milk you are using. Once the milk is thick, add the masala powder, 1 tablespoon at a time and stir continuously.
- Continue boiling the milk on medium heat for another 5-10 minutes. Once the milk is thivk and has further reduced, add 3/4 cup sugar and mix well. You can adjust sugar as per your liking. Continue boiling milk for another 3-4 minutes and then turn off the flame.
- Serve it hot or chilled as per your choice. You can garnish it with chopped nuts if you like.
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