Getting the lassi’s consistency right is always a challenge.
When we had just began venturing into cooking, Junkeeri and I once made a banana lassi so thick it had to
be eaten with a spoon. From then, I have been carefully observing and measuring the
ingredients of lassi for several years before the perfect brew was achieved.
First of all, the fruit. Personally, I think nothing beats a
mango lassi, but when good mangoes are scarce (like in the backwaters of
American Midwest where all you get is plasticky looking green Mexican mangoes
with garish red blush – that have little softness and no smell), then I go for
other fruits. My second favorite fruit to make a lassi with -strawberries and bananas – is a crowd
pleaser. Chop up all the fruit that you want to use, and throw it into the
blender. For one person, half a banana and 2 strawberries should be enough. This here is a whole banana and 5 strawberries for 2 people.
Other good fruits for lassi: peach is good. Melon is not
good, melon doesn’t jive with anything, so never have it in mix fruits or any
other dishes. Pomegranates would be good but the solid by products spoil the
taste. Any kind of berry raspberry, blueberry,
ainselu, bayar, is good. Oranges and mausams are nto so good because of the
solid waste, but if u can manage to put just the juice in, that’s great. Pear
is good, pineapple is awesome.
Next: the yoghurt. Pour yoghurt into the blender by the
spoonful, and stop when you have approximately equal amounts of fruits and
yoghurt (yes, the yoghurt will seep into the spaces left by fruit, but that’s
all right. Too much fruit makes for a sticky potion.) At this point, if you
want to be sophisticated and drink the American drink called smoothie, stop
right there, put the lid on the blender, and blend away to a very viscous brew
that you may either drink or eat with a spoon. If, like me, you prefer to
actually drink lassi, get ready with a jug of coldest water.
Water: Pour water into the blender until there is as much
water as the fruit and yoghurt combined. For the thinnest brew, the proportions
for the ingredients should be 1:1:2, visually, which means one part fruit, one
part yoghurt, and 2 parts water. This is what the picture shows. Put any more
water than this and you can call you dish flavored water instead of lassi. If
you want you drink thicker, put water at 1:1:1, which is equal parts of
everything. Any less water than this and you will be back to eating it with a
spoon.
Sugar: Now is the time to add the important tastemaker. I
believe that the judgement of sugar should be left to the individual, because one
woman’s perfect brew is another’s syrupy chasni. But just for general
guidelines, if you can guess how many tea cups of lassi you are making, then
you may put double the amount of sugar in tea spoons. For example, if you think
your brew will make one tea cup of lassi, go ahead and put 2 spoons of sugar
(because yoghurt is sour, you need more sugar than a cup of tea in the same
cup.) For this picture, I estimated six cups and put in 12 spoons of sugar.
Spice: When sugar is around, then spice can’t be far away. Nutmeg.
Pepper. Cinnamon. Cardamom powder. Any
or all of those work great, just be careful with the nutmeg as too much of it
overpowers your senses and puts you to sleep as well.
Next: Blend away to glory. Put a couple ice cubes, and you
are ready to chill on a hot day!!
List of Ingredients:
Banana
Strawberry
(Or any other fruit: recommended mangoes and pineapples)
Yoghurt
Water
Sugar
Black Pepper and/or nutmeg / cinnamon / cardamom powder
Pictures courtesy Tola
No comments:
Post a Comment