A Little Taste of India

The delicious, cold, sweet, rose pink falooda...

While in India I enjoyed many new experiences, both culinary and cultural. When it came to India drinks; I, of course, new all about lassi and beer and I'd heard of the Goan spirit - feni... but the term "falooda" was new to me.

Falooda, according to wikipedia (and we all know how reliable the wiki is...) falooda originated in Persia and was brought to India by the Moguls to the Mahrastra district - where it was adopted with great enthusiasm. Traditionally is also contains barely cooked vermicelli - but I couldn't quite bring myself to do that... My falooda consists of milk, ground almonds and pistachios, rose syrup, ice-cream and the unusual looking, frog spawn like basil seeds.

It's a deadly sweet, but entirely refreshing drink. And, any left overs can be frozen into a delicious "faloodle" ice-cream - totally authentic, I'm sure!

"Faloodle" Ice-Cream - I wasn't able to grind the nuts fine enough, and couldn't bare to lose them, so I froze them!

I'm not entirely sure that basil seeds or "sabza" can be found in NZ, but I'll give you the recipe all the same!

>>>


This a sort of guide line to what ingredients you'll need - adapted, as ever, from about.com. Actual quantities are entirely to taste!

milk
ground almonds, or whole and grind your own...
ground pistachios, as above.
rose syrup
basil seeds
ice-cream
ice

Method:

In a blender, grind nuts adding milk slowly - taking nuts from "paste" to liquid. Allow this mix to sit for several hours to flavour the milk.

If, like me, you couldn't get the nuts fine enough to not leave a grainy texture - sieve them out before adding rose syrup to the milk.

Soak the basil seeds for 5 minutes, or until the little black tears, develop a semi-opaque white coating.

Spoon the soaked seeds into glasses and pour over the rose, nutty milk. Top with ice-cream and ice and serve with a spoon and straw.

To make the "faloodle" use the same nuts again and soak in milk. Add rose syrup, basil seeds and softened ice-cream - pour into conatiners and freeze until solid.

Yum!