Shivji Ki THANDAI

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As a child every Sunday my parents would take me to either Juhu Beach or Chowpatty. Yes that’s what you will do to spend Sunday’s with family in Mumbai , during late 80’s and early 90’s.
Something I would drink often there was masala milk. Has anyone else tasted masala milk. As I grew up, to be honest, masala milk kind of just vanished from my taste buds. But at about the age of 22… when I started doing Shravan Pooja ( a prayer dedicated to Lord Shiva) my Panditji asked me to arrange Thandai

Shivji loves Thandai, after all milk is offered ei him, the dessert he has is Thandai. Ofcourse for him, if we add cannabis, he loves it even more. And guess what I realised that Thandai tastes exactly like masala milk, childhood memories came alive!
This year, because of pandemic and not much access to many things… I decided to make homemade Thandai… and I don’t think it can taste any better than my recipe 🙂

So read below:

  1. Take a handful of almonds and cashews… maybe even some pistachios (optional)
  2. Add in some melon seeds, saunf and black peppercorns, elachi powder
  3. And most important some poppy seeds (khus khus) – This is mandatory.
  4. Blend it all in together to make a fine powder . Make sure that the powder remains that consistency and not pasty … so don’t over grind. That’s your Thandai powder. It can stay in the fridge upto a week.
  5. On the day you want to drink it. Bring your milk to boil.
  6. Also soak a few strands of kesar (saffron) in some like warm milk and wait fr it to get a nice yellow colour
  7. Inside the hot milk… say for about 250 ml milk take 2 – 2.5 tsp of the thandai powder mix and 1 tsp sugar and stir it well till it mixes nicely. (If u use cold milk… the whole drink will remain grain, so it’s important to use hot milk)
    • Also add in the kesar milk to get the nice yellow colour to the thandai… u need to mix the kesar well
    • Now keep in the refrigerator and let it chill for 3 hours
    • Serve cold … while serving add in few dried rose petals

Tip: if you wish to make a pan variant, while making the powder, add in some paan (beetel nut leaves) and instead of sugar use gulakand paste.