inner pickle

high chai

 

Hello! Back in August I sent out a call for chai recipes here - noting my devotedness to the drink and hoping to be flooded with fabulous recipes (aka brownies, for which I have more recipes than I'll ever be able to cook. Or eat.)

Surprisingly (to me) you lot aren't as enamoured of chai as I am. 

In fact, I got only one recipe back. LUCKY, it was perfect. 

It was from my sister Naomi who lives in Germany, and she got it from her guy at the Asian supermarket in Oberursel who is actually from Calcutta and therefore knows his chai.

And so he does.

This stuff rocks.

 

CHAI

Ingredients:

4 Cardamon pods

4 cloves

1/3 cinnamon stick

1 tsp loose tea (ideally Sri Lankan)

2cm small piece of fresh ginger

2/3 cup milk

2/3 cup water

Method:

Bash cardamon and cloves together, in a mortar and pestle if you have one or with a rolling pin or tin of baked beans if you don't.

Put cardamon, cloves and the cinnamon into the saucepan with the tea, the ginger (also bashed up) and then the water and milk. Simmer on low for about half and hour then strain and drink. Personally I think it needs a teaspoon of sugar at the end too but I don't know if that's legit. A bit soulless without the sugar.

So that's one more item off my 20 New Things list which is still dreadfully FULL given I'm s'posed to have completed it by the end of this month...

Well, let's give the rest of them a red hot go, shall we?

xxx

tea time

OK YOU LOT.

Now I know you're reading this, because I get stats. And I even get lots of lovely emails from people who want to chat but don't want to comment on the blog. I'm really not sure why. I read every comment and love it love it love it.

One lovely friend who obviously wishes to stay nameless refers to herself as a cyber voyeur. No commenting rule.

But this is important. 

I was talking to my marvellous workmate Ben today (Hi Benoss) and we were talking about chai. My FAVOURITE drink. (After shiraz.)

All tea is a journey to peacefulness, frankly. You can imagine it's youthful start here:

Handpicked into baskets, trekking along these rows here:

*sigh* Is the kettle on yet?

And CHAI. Well. Chai has that fantastic spicy pepperyness that is a whole other world of tea fabulousness.

I drink chai and am SO RELAXED I look just like this:

Really. It's a miracle.

No, seriously, I want, I need, chai recipes. Please?? The best chai I've ever had was at Badde Manors cafe in Glebe and I'd swap a small child for that particular recipe. 

So if any of you non-commenters out there have any spicy indian tea recipes, please let's have them!

Meanwhile, it's English Breakfast.

xxx

Thanks to Microsoft clip art for the pics today!!