Thandai
The Holi drink. Cold milk infused with a ground paste of almonds, cashews, fennel, cardamom, peppercorn, poppy seeds, rose petals and saffron. Sweet, perfumed, lightly spiced, and traditionally served by the jug as colour flies.
Overview
A nut-and-spice paste is the soul of thandai: almonds and cashews soaked soft, ground with green cardamom, fennel, white peppercorns, poppy seeds, dried rose petals and saffron, then whisked into cold sweetened milk. Strained, chilled, poured over ice. The drink reads cool and complex: sweet from the sugar and saffron, perfumed from the rose and cardamom, with a faint warmth from the fennel and pepper.
Ingredients
The thandai paste
- 30 g whole almonds
- 30 g cashews
- 1 tablespoon poppy seeds (khus khus)
- 2 teaspoons fennel seeds
- ½ teaspoon white peppercorns
- 8 green cardamom pods (seeds only)
- 2 tablespoons dried rose petals (edible)
- A pinch of saffron threads
- 1 tablespoon warm water (to bloom the saffron)
The base
- 1 litre whole milk
- 120 g caster sugar (adjust to taste)
- 1 teaspoon rose water
To serve
- Ice cubes
- A small pinch of slivered pistachios
- A few rose petals
Method
Stage 1 - Soak and bloom
- Tip the almonds, cashews and poppy seeds into a small bowl, cover with warm water and leave to soak for 1 hour. Drain.
- Bloom the saffron in the tablespoon of warm water for 15 minutes.
Stage 2 - Make the paste
- In a small grinder or mortar, combine the soaked nuts and poppy seeds, the fennel, white peppercorns, cardamom seeds, rose petals and the bloomed saffron with its soaking water.
- Add 3-4 tablespoons of the milk to loosen and blitz to a smooth, slightly grainy paste. Scrape down the sides once or twice. The paste should be the consistency of thick double cream.
Stage 3 - Build the drink
- Pour the rest of the milk into a large jug. Whisk in the sugar until dissolved.
- Add the thandai paste and rose water. Whisk vigorously to combine. The drink will look opaque and pale, with flecks of green and gold.
- Cover and chill for at least 2 hours, or overnight. The flavours deepen and the paste hydrates.
Stage 4 - Strain and serve
- Pour through a fine sieve into a clean jug, pressing the solids with the back of a spoon to extract every drop. Discard the solids (or stir them through warm milk for a thicker breakfast version).
- Pour over ice into tall glasses. Top with slivered pistachios and a rose petal or two.
Notes
- A traditional thandai is left slightly grainy; a strained version is cleaner and easier to drink quickly through a Holi afternoon.
- For a chocolate-thandai twist, whisk 2 tablespoons of cocoa powder into the warm milk before chilling.
- To prepare ahead, make the paste 2 days early and store in a jar in the fridge; the milk goes in the morning of serving.
Serving
In tall glasses with plenty of ice, alongside trays of gujiya, jalebi and pakora. By the jug at the Holi table; refilled often.
Storage
The strained drink keeps in a sealed jug in the fridge for 24 hours, but tastes brightest within the first 6 hours.
More like this
Jalebi
A loose batter of plain flour, gram flour, yoghurt and water ferments 8-12 hours at room temperature (or 24 hours in the fridge), the slight tang from the yoghurt and the bubbles from the fermentation give the characteristic crisp-shattering bite. A 1-thread sugar syrup is scented with saffron, cardamom and a squeeze of lemon. The batter goes into a piping bag (or squeezy bottle); piped into hot oil in spirals from the centre outwards; fried for 30-40 seconds per side; lifted out and dropped straight into warm syrup for 30 seconds; lifted again. Eaten immediately while still hot and crisp.
Rasmalai
Whole milk boils, then curdles with lemon juice; the curds drain to chhana (fresh paneer). The chhana kneads for 8-10 minutes until smooth and lump-free, this is what gives the dumpling its sponge. Small flattened discs poach gently in sugar syrup; they double in size. A separate pan reduces a second batch of milk by half with cardamom, saffron, almonds and sugar to a rich rabri. The squeezed dumplings float in the cool rabri to absorb the spiced milk overnight.
Besan Ladoo
Coarse besan toasted in ghee for a long, slow half-hour, until the colour deepens from pale yellow to a warm honey-brown and the smell turns from raw to roasted-cashew. Off the heat, cooled to barely-warm, then folded with powdered sugar, cardamom and slivered pistachios. Rolled into walnut-sized balls and left to set. The result is dense, fudgy, faintly grainy - the texture is part of the charm.
Gujiya
A short, slightly tender dough made with maida, ghee and milk is rolled thin and cut into rounds. Each round is filled with a warmed mixture of khoya (or thickened condensed milk), desiccated coconut, semolina, chopped nuts and cardamom. The edges are sealed with a fluted crimp and the parcels are deep-fried low and slow until pale gold. Dusted with icing sugar while warm.