- Servings:
- Soaking time: 6-8 hours.
- Preparation time: 30 minutes.
- Mixing time: 5-6 minutes.
- Serving time: 1 minutes(each glass).
- Total time: 37 minutes.
Thandhaee/ Thandhai are the drink to be used essentially on the occasion of Holi since ancient time. It reminds me our tradition and rings like bell in our mind that this is a festival to make merry and fun. It reminds me to play ‘Antakshari’ and drink ‘Thandhaee’ and eats so many sweets and favourites.
It is traditional milk based Indian drink, very popular in north India. It is good for health; especially very soothing for Indian summer.
Ingredients:
- Almond: 150 gm
- Melon seed: 150 gm
- Poppy seed: 50 gm
- Sugar: 2 kg
- Fennel seed: 25 gm (powder)
- Black pepper: 10 gm (powder)
- Green cardamom: 15 gm
- Saffron: ½ to 1 gm
- Rose water: 30 ml
- Kewada essence: one forth teaspoon
- Sodium benzoate: 1 teaspoon
- Citric acid: 1 teaspoon
- Water: 1 liter
Preparation:
- In a large pan; put sugar, water as well as citric acid; bring it to boil, let the syrup boil for 3-4 minutes, remove from heat. Sugar syrup is ready.
- Soak saffron in water for 20 to 30 minutes.
- Soak almond for overnight or 8-10 hours; peel off the outer layer or skin, grind almond with the help of prepared sugar syrup (1/2 to 1 cup), it should be thick paste like curd, keep aside.
- Grind melon seed and poppy seed separately with the help of sugar syrup, keep aside,
- Dry grind fennel seed, black pepper and green cardamom together to make very-very fine powder, keep aside.
Method:
- Take a big mixing bowl, put all prepared ingredients, mix properly.
- Add saffron, rose water, kewada essence and sodium benzoate; sodium benzoate takes a little more time to dissolve, stir properly.
- Store this Thandhai in a glass bottle. Don’t fill the bottle fully, Keep some empty space.
- The bottle can be stored in the refrigerator for few months.
How to serve:
- This is to be served with mixing in the milk.
- Put crushed ice in the glass, for 200 ml of milk take 10 to 15 ml of syrup and mix it well.
- Garnish with rose petal; cool -cool Thandhai is ready for serve.
Thandhai by Nag Ratna Sahu is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.