Thandai Fusion ~ Desi Fusion Twist

Holi is a festival of colors. Every Indian likes to relish this festival irrespective of their respective religion.

Holi is an annual festival celebrated on the day after the full moon in the Hindu month of Phalguna (early March). It celebrates spring, commemorates various events in Hindu mythology. It is also a festival of love and togetherness.

Thandai is usually served as welcome drink in many occasions but on Holi it is served through out the day to keep up our energy levels high. This drink not only hydrates our body but also cools down our excess body temperature. The presence of few spices indulged in chilled milk makes your festival even more memorable.

But being an experimental foodie, I tried various version of Thandai to satisfy my taste buds.

Lets start with classical Thandai Recipe

Ingredients:

Full Fat Cream Milk : 1 Ltr

Sugar : 1 Cup

Saffron : 1/2 tspn

Almonds : 10 to 15

Musk melon seeds : 1 tbspn

Chirnonji : 1 tblspn

Saunf / Fennel : 1 + 1/4 tspn

Poppy Seeds : 1 + 1/4 tspn

Pepper powder : 1/4 tspn

Cardamom powder : 1/2 tspn

Kewra essence : 1/4 tspn

Dry rose petals or rose water (Optional)

Chocolate bar or chocolate powder : 20 gms or 1 tblpspn

Butter scotch : 1 + 1/4 Tspn

Strawberry squash : 1 + 1/4 Tspn

Method :

Classic Thandai

Soak almonds, chironji, poppy seeds, musk melon seeds, saunf / fennel in some water for 8 hours.

Peel off almonds skin and blend almonds along with musk melon seeds, saunf / fennel and chironji with little water.

Make sure you have a smooth paste.

Boil Full fat cream milk on low flame. Make sure milk doesn't stick to the bottom of the pan.

Once you see small bubbles, add sugar and stir in until sugar completely dissolves in milk.
Let milk boil for 5 more mins and then add almonds paste and stir in.

Let it boil for 5 more mins on low flame.
Now take a 1 Tblspn of warm milk and add saffron.

Once saffron releases its color and aroma add it to the milk.
Add pepper powder and cardamom powder too.
Turn off the flame after 2 mins.
Now you can serve it chilled with slivered almonds and other dry fruits and rose petals.
Or you can strain the mixture and serve it with dry fruits and rose petals

To give it a twist I prepared thandai in 3 more different flavors apart from classic thandai.

Chocolate Thandai.

Strain regular or classic thandai into a bowl.
Let it rest in fridge
Take a glass bowl, add chocolate and milk.

Pop this into a micro wave for 90 secs. Take out the bowl and let it stand for 1 min and stir in milk and melted chocolate with a spoon.
You can also melt chocolate on a double boiler. Or you can simply add 1 tbspl of chocolate powder to warm milk and mix it. transfer it to a low flame add let it boil for 3 to 4 mins to get enhanced flavor of chocolate.