MAGIK INDIA

A selection of the most popular non-alcoholic beverages of India.

Chai / Masala tea

Let’s start by the most popular beverages of India: chai tea!

Chai is a black tea with milk and a good dose of sugar :). Mixed with spices, it takes the name of “masala chaï”. The word chai (tea in Hindi) is the name given in the north of India, in Tamil Nadu it is called Teythani or Teyilai.

There is no fixed recipe or preparation method for masala chai and many families have their own versions of the tea. Most chai contains 1/3 of black tea. Usually, a specific type of Assam is used called “mamri”, a granuled tea.

For a masala chai, the spice mixture, called Karha, uses a base of ground ginger and green cardamom pods. Other spices are usually added to this base like cinnamon, star anise, fennel seeds, peppercorn, nutmeg, cloves and also lemongrass and mint like in Gujarat. Certain type of spices will be used according to the season.

[ The art of Chai in Tamil Nadu ]

Coffee / Kaapi

Indian coffee is made by mixing frothed and boiled milk with coffee powder in a traditional Indian filter.

The drink is also known as kaapi (the South Indian phonetic rendering of “coffee”). Outside India, the term “filter coffee” may refer to drip brew.

The most commonly used coffee beans are arabica and robusta of South India hills.

In South India, the coffee is drunk from the tumbler but is often cooled first with a “dabarah” a wide metal saucer with lipped walls.

Lassi

Another famous drink of India. Lassi is a blend of yogurt and water.

Traditional lassi is a savoury drink, sometimes flavoured with ground and roasted cumin.

Sweet lassi, however, contains sugar or fruits, instead of spices. Lassis are enjoyed chilled as a hot-weather refreshment, mostly taken with lunch.

Chaas

Chaas, pronounced ‘Chaach’ is a yogurt-based drink popular across India. It is a kind of buttermilk.

Chaas is made by churning yogurt and cold water together in a pot, using a hand-held instrument called madhani (whipper).

This can be consumed plain or seasoned with a variety of spices.

Chaas is very close to Lassi, with two major differences: Chaas is more dilute (with water) than lassi and unlike lassi, Chaas does not have added sugar.

Chaas can be consumed plain, but a little salt is usually added. Numerous other seasonings and spices can be added to salted Chaas, either singly or in combination with each other. The spices which can be added thus are: Coarsely ground and roasted cumin seeds, curry leaves, asafoetida, grated ginger, very finely diced green chillies and Mustard seeds.

Coconut water

Coconut water has long been a popular refreshing drink in the tropical countries.

Coconut water is the clear liquid inside young green coconuts (fruits of the coconut palm). Fresh coconuts are typically harvested from the tree while they are green. A hole may be bored into the coconut to provide access to the liquid and meat.

They are often sold by street vendors who cut them open with machetes or similar implements in front of customers.

In recent years, coconut water has been marketed as a natural energy or sports drink having low levels of fat, carbohydrates, and calories, and significant electrolyte content. However this is disallowed by certain regulatory agencies.

Sugarcane juice

Sugarcane juice is the juice extracted from pressed sugarcane. It is obtained by crushing peeled sugar cane in a mill.

It can be a hand-cranked machine, or powered. It is served, often cold, and sometimes with other ingredients, such as a squeeze of lemon, black salt or mint.

The juice is very healthy and tasty but you have to be very careful about hygienic conditions.

[ Sugarcane juice making in Odisha ]

Shikanjvi ou Nimbu Pani – limonade

Shikanjvi or Nimbu Pani is a type of traditional lemonade from North India.

While the base ingredients include lemon or lime juice and sugar, shikanjvi often contains other ingredients such as chaat masala, salt, saffron and cumin.

Indian desserts, like the country itself, are colourful and infinitely varied. There are two kinds of desserts in India, those based on milk, like rasgula, rasmalai and burfi, and those based on flour, like gulab jamun, halwa and ladoo. Either way, there’s no stinting on sugar and oil. 🙂

Here is a selection of some of the most popular desserts of India

Kheer / Payasam

Kheer is a rice pudding made by boiling rice or broken wheat, tapioca, vermicelli with milk and sugar.

It is flavoured with cardamom, raisins, saffron, cashews, pistachios or almonds.

It is typically served during a meal or as a dessert. It is also known in some regions as payasam (South India).

Kheer is also served as an offering to the Gods in Hindu temples during rituals and ceremonies.

Gulab Jamun

Gulab Jamun is one of the most popular desserts in India. It is a milk-solids-based dessert called khoya.

Milk solids are prepared by heating milk over a low flame for a long time until most of the water content has evaporated.

The khoya is then kneaded into a dough, sometimes with a pinch of flour, and then shaped into small balls and deep-fried at a low temperature of about 148 °C.

The balls are then soaked in a light sugary syrup flavored with green cardamom and rose water, kewra or saffron.

Gulab jamun is usually served at weddings and birthday parties.

Kulfi

Kulfi is a popular frozen dairy dessert. It is often described as the indian ice cream.

As popularly understood, Kulfi has similarities to ice cream in appearance and taste; however it is denser and creamier.

Unlike Western ice creams, kulfi is not whipped, resulting in a solid, dense frozen dessert similar to traditional custard-based ice cream. It comes in various flavours.

The more traditional ones are cream (malai), rose, mango, cardamom (elaichi), saffron (kesar or zafran), and pistachio.

Ladoo

Another very famous dessert of India. Laddu or laddoo are ball-shaped sweets popular in all the Indian Subcontinent.

Common flours used for laddu include besan (chickpea flour), rava (wheat semolina) and ground coconut. These are combined with sugar and other flavorings, cooked in ghee and molded into a ball shape. Nuts such as pistachios and almonds are commonly stuffed into laddus.

Laddu is often prepared for festivals or family events such as weddings and births, or given as a prasad (sacred food) at Hindu temples, especially to Ganesha, the elephant-headed deity.

Burfi

Barfi is a dense milk based sweet confectionery, a type of mithai. The name is a derivative of the Persian word barf, which means snow.

A few of the famous varieties of barfi include besan barfi (made with gram flour), kaaju barfi (made with cashews), pista barfi (made with ground pistachios), and sing barfi (made with peanuts).

The main ingredients of plain barfis include condensed milk and sugar. The ingredients are cooked in a vessel until the mixture solidifies.

Barfis are usually coated with a thin layer of edible metallic leaf known as vark.

The confection is served all year round, but especially consumed during the holiday seasons, wedding ceremonies, and the religious festivals like Diwali, the Hindu festival of lights.

Gajar Ka Halwa

Gajar ka halwa also known as gajrela is a sweet dessert pudding associated mainly with the North India.

There are many variations of gajar ka halwa, but its main ingredients are freshly grated carrots, milk, sugar, khoya (condensed milk), and ghee (clarified butter).

It is often served with a garnish of almonds and pistachios or cashew nuts which are first sautéed in ghee.

Rasgulla

Rasgulla is a syrupy dessert made from ball shaped dumplings of chhena (an Indian cottage cheese) and semolina dough, cooked in light syrup made of sugar.

The dish originated in East India; the present-day states of Odisha and West Bengal are variously claimed to be the birthplace of the dish.

Chhena is created in a similar process to paneer cheese except it is not pressed for as long.

Jalebi

Jalebi, also known as Zulbia, is a very famous sweet throughout all India but also in the Middle East and Africa.

It is made by deep-frying a wheat flour (maida flour) batter in bretzel or circular shapes, which are then soaked in sugar syrup. They are particularly popular during Ramadan and Diwali.

Most Indian breads are flatbreads, made without leavening and cooked on a flat or concave pan called a tava or fried in oil. Bread is a staple of the Indian diet, especially in the North where a meal without chapatis is almost unthinkable.

I make a small aside concerning the flours used in India.There is a wide variety of them but wheat flour, rice, lentils, chick peas and corn are the most commonly used.

Wheat flour

• Atta : Atta refers to whole wheat with brownish white color. Most atta is milled from the semi-hard wheat varieties, also known as durum wheat. Hard wheats have a high content of gluten (a protein composite that gives elasticity), so doughs made out of atta flour are strong and can be rolled out very thin. Atta is used to make most indian flatbreads, such as chapati, roti, naan and puri.
• Maida : Maida is a finely milled refined wheat flour, closely resembling cake flour. Maida flour is used extensively in making bakery products such as pastries and breads (parrot, naan, bathura)
• Shooji : Shoji or rawa is semolina. There are actually two types of grinds, sooji and medium sooji. For regular Sooji, the grain is ground to be like coarse grains of sand. Medium sooji is more finely ground. Semolina is used to make tasty upma, rava idli, khichdi, and desserts like halwa and kheer.

Lentils flour (dhal)

Gluten-free and rich in protein, lentil flours are commonly used in India. Here are the best known:

• Gram / Besan : A very common Indian flour made from chickpea used for fritters as pakoras, and some pastries.
• Urad dhal : Black gram bean flour also called black soybeans used for poppodums breads and mixed with rice flour to make dosas and idli.

Rice flour (chawal ka atta)

It can be made from white or brown rice. In southern India, it is a component of several breads like idli and dosa.

Corn flour (makai ka Atta)

Corn flour is the most consumed flour after wheat flour, tied with rice flour. It is involved in many dishes and breads like “ki roti maki” the favorite Punjab bread consumed during the winter season.

The most popular breads of India

Chapati

Let’s start by the most common bread of North India. Chapati is an unleavened flatbread (also known as roti) made out Atta flour and cooked on a tava (flat skillet).

The word chapat in Hindi means “to slap”, and the traditional method of forming rounds of thin dough is by slapping the dough between the wetted palms of the hands. With each slap, the round of dough is rotated.

Often, the top of a chapati is slathered with butter or ghee (clarified butter). A piece of chapati is torn off and used to pick up the ingredients that make the meal.

Paratha

A paratha is a flatbread that originated in the north of the Indian Subcontinent. It is still quite prevalent in the north of India, where wheat is grown and is the traditional staple of the area.

Paratha is an amalgamation of the words “parat” and “atta” which literally means layers of cooked dough. Parathas are thicker and more substantial than chapatis/rotis and this is either because, in the case of a plain paratha, they have been layered by coating with ghee or oil and folding repeatedly

Parathas can be eaten as a breakfast dish or as a tea-time (tiffin) snack.

Puri

Poori is an unleavened deep-fried Indian bread, commonly consumed on the Indian subcontinent. It is eaten for breakfast or as a snack or light meal.

It is usually served with a curry or bhaji. Poori is prepared with wheat flour, either atta (whole wheat flour), maida (refined wheat flour), or sooji (coarse wheat flour). Maida flour is the most common flour used in making Pooris.

A dough of flour and salt is either rolled out in a small circle or rolled out and cut out in small circles and deep fried in ghee or vegetable oil. While deep frying, it puffs up like a round ball because moisture in the dough changes into steam which expands in all directions. When it is golden-brown in color, it is removed and may be served hot or saved for later use.

Bhatura

Bhatura is a fluffy deep-fried leavened bread from North India.

A typical recipe includes white flour (maida), yogurt, ghee or oil, and either yeast or baking powder. Once kneaded well, the dough is left to rise, and then small balls of it are either hand-rolled or flattened using a rolling pin. Then the bread pieces are deep fried until they puff up into a lightly browned, soft, fluffy bread, which is elastic and chewy.

It is often eaten with chickpea curry (chole), making the traditional dish ‘chole bhature‘.

Dosa

Dosa is a fermented crepe made from rice batter and black lentils. It is a staple dish in South Indian.

A mixture of rice and urad dal that has been soaked in water is ground finely to form a batter. Some add a handful of fenugreek seeds soaked along with the rice. The proportion of rice to lentils is generally 4:1 or 5:1. The batter is allowed to ferment overnight.

After the overnight fermentation, the batter is mixed with water to get the desired thickness. The batter is then ladled onto a hot tava (griddle) greased with oil or ghee (clarified butter). It is spread out evenly with the base of a ladle or bowl to form a pancake. A dosa is served hot, either folded in half or rolled like a wrap.

It is also usually served with chutney and sambar.

Naan

Naan is a leavened, oven-baked flatbread. Generally, it resembles pita and, like pita bread, is usually leavened with yeast or with bread starter (leavened naan dough left over from a previous batch);

unleavened dough (similar to that used for roti) is also used. Naan is cooked in a tandoor, from which tandoori cooking takes its name. This distinguishes it from roti, which is usually cooked on a flat or slightly concave iron griddle called a tava.

Typically, it is served hot and brushed with ghee or butter. It can be used to scoop other foods, or served stuffed with a filling.

Parotta

A parotta is a layered flatbread made from maida flour, from the culinary tradition of parts of Southern India, especially Tamil Nadu as well as Kerala.

Parottas are usually available as street food. It consists in thin multiple layers which are flaky and smooth at the same time.

It is usually eaten with different curries.

Papadum

Papadum or papad is a thin, crisp disc-shaped food typically based on a seasoned dough usually made from peeled black gram flour (urad flour), fried or cooked with dry heat.

Flours made from other sources such as lentils, chickpeas, rice, tapioca or potato, can be used.

Papadums are typically served as an accompaniment to a meal or as an appetizer or snack, sometimes with toppings such as chopped onions, chopped carrots, chutneys or other dips and condiments.

Baati

Baati is a hard, unleavened whole-grain wheat bread of Rajasthan.

The procedure for making Baatis is very different than any North Indian bread. Traditionally Baatis are first boiled in the water and then baked in the clay oven (Tandoor) or grill.

Baati is usually eaten with dal, hence the dish ‘dal baati‘.

Makki di roti

Makki di roti or Makhai ki roti is a flat, unleavened Punjabi bread made from corn flour.

Like most breads in indian cuisine, it is baked on a tava. Makki di roti is generally made during winter in Punjab and is perhaps best known when accompanied with saag (a leaf-based dish like spinach, mustard leaf…), makkhan (butter) and buttermilk (chaas)

Czot

Czot is a popular soft bread of Kashmir prepared in tandoor (earth oven) and made of Atta flour. It is usually used as breakfast with salted butter and cinnamon tea. A real treat. During Ramzan or Ramadan it is the only bread that is baked. In Kashmir, the tradition is to served Czot with meat when happy events occur like marriage or new born baby.