Thandai-Spiced and Nutty Milk

Thandai is a speciality drink made during Holi or the Spring Festival.It is made of milk,spices like cardamom,cinnamon,peppercorns,fennel,melon seeds and also mixed nuts like almonds,pistachios and cashews.There are several versions and even alcoholic ones as well.I found a delectable recipe at SanjeeevKapoors here and have adapted it.I did not have dried rosepetals as used in the original recipe,so instead added gulkand (rosepetals preserves with sugar) at the end instead of rosepetal powder.

Ingredients:
Milk: 1and 1/4 cup
Sugar: 3 tbsp+/-
Saffron: a few strands

To be ground into a paste
Almonds: 6 blanched and peeled
Cashew:5-6
Pistachios: 5-6 shelled
Poppyseeds: 3/4 tsp
Melon Seeds: 3/4 -1 tsp
Milk: little for soaking and grinding.

To be powdered:
Green Cardamom: 2+ peeled
Cinnamon: a small piece or as per taste
PepperCorns: few as per taste
Dried Rose petals: few

Preparation:

Soak the cashews,pistas,melon seeds and poppy seeds in little milk for atleast 15 minutes. Then ground to a fine paste along with blanched and peeled almonds. Keep aside.

Finely powder the cinnamon,peppercorns,and cardamom along with dried rosepetals. I did not have dried rose petals so I powdered the rest and added the rosepetal preserves at the end.

Bring milk to a boil in a pan.Add the sugar and saffron and stir well till sugar dissolves.Add the paste of nuts,mix well and let it simmer for a few minutes.Add the powdered spices and take off heat.Let it cool down and then chill and serve garnished with flaked almonds,rosepetals or saffron or as itself.

If you are adding gulkand then add it when the milk attains room temp.You can add around 1/2 tsp of gulkand or more as per taste.also in case you are adding this,reduce the sugar added while boiling as this has sugar in this.

This is my last minute entry to Holi Event at Asankhana.