Kesar Badam Milk / Saffron flavoured Almond Milk

Kesar Badam milk is a refreshing and nourishing drink for all age groups and can be had during any season. Serve chilled during summer and warm during winter.

I loved this wonderful drink ever since childhood, but we never prepared it's powder at home, but used badam milk powder available in super markets to prepare. Ever since I started blogging, I want to prepare everything at home and so thought of preparing badam milk powder at home and so this is how I ended up with this recipe. I have used easily available ingredients at home and the resulting drink tasted similar to that prepared using powder bought from store.

 INGREDIENTS :

(1) 1 litre of Milk

(2) 2 pinch of Kesar / Saffron

(3) 15 teaspoon of sugar (as per taste required)

(4) 40 almond pieces

(5) Half teaspoon of Cardamom powder

All ingredients set together 

Boiled milk

Saffron / Kesar

Saffron strands

Sugar

Almonds

Cardamom seed powder

Cuisine : Beverages

Serves : 3 - 4 persons

Time required : 30 minutes

METHOD :

(1) Boil the 1 litre of milk and keep aside.

(2) Soak the Kesar / Saffron in a small bowl of warm milk for half an hour.

(3) Soak Almonds in hot water for 15 minutes. Peel the skin of the Almonds and grind them into a smooth paste adding one cup of milk. As my mixer grinder was not capable of grinding the almonds into fine powder, I used mortar pestle to crush the almonds and that formed a bit coarse granules of almonds, but better than what my mixer could do. For those who do not like coarse granules of almonds in the Badam milk, please do not follow this way, instead use a grinder.

Almonds soaked in water and peeled

Powdered Almonds

(4) Keep the boiled milk on gas stove again and add one by one all the ingredients. Add sugar, then add almond powder / paste, saffron milk, cardamom powder. Keep the gas stove on a low flame and bring the mixture to a boil for 10-15 minutes. During this process, keep stirring and do not let it stick to the bottom and form lumps.

Add powdered Almonds to the boiling milk

Add Sugar

Add Saffron milk

Add Cardamom seed powder

(5) Once the badam milk is boiled, turn off the gas flame. 

Our Kesar Badam Milk is ready!

(6) During summers, we like to have it in a chilled form, so let it cool down to a room temperature and then refrigerate it and serve chilled. During winters, one can have it in a warm form. I have shown pictures in both ways, garnished with crushed almond and with saffron.

Note : As I had crushed almonds instead of grinding, the badam milk had coarse granules of almond in it. I liked it that way so had it warm in a cup as shown. Later, I strained the badam milk using a strainer to remove the coarse granules and refrigerated it. Then served chilled in a tall serving glass as shown. Again garnished as shown using saffron strands and crushed almond.

Rohu fish curry (Bihari style) using mustard

Married in a Bihari family, I learnt from my mother-in-law this Rohu fish curry (Bihari style) using mustard. Lets learn their style of favorite non vegeterian dish today exactly as is prepared in their state of Bihar.

Washed Rohu fish pieces

INGREDIENTS :

FOR MARINADE :

(1) 1 Kg Rohu fish

(2) 1 teaspoon of Turmeric powder / Haldi 

(3) 2-3 teaspoon of Red Chilli powder

(4) 2 teaspoon of Salt

FOR GRAVY :

(1) Half piece of a medium sized Onion, coarsely chopped

(2) Two small Tomatoes, coarsely chopped

(3) 2 whole green chillies

(4) 4 whole red chillies (Add as per spicy taste required)

(5) 5 cloves of Garlic

(6) 2 teaspoon of Jeera / Cumin seeds

(7) 2 pieces of Cloves

(8) 3 pieces of green Cardamom (green elaichi)

(9) 4 teaspoon of yellow Mustard seeds (Pila Sarso)

(10) Half teaspoon of Black Pepper powder

(11) 4 teaspoon of Coriander seeds (whole)

(12) 1/4 teaspoon of Methi seeds / Fenugreek seeds

(13) 1/4 teaspoon of Turmeric powder

(14) 4 tablespoon of Mustard oil (Sarso ka tel)

(15) Cooking oil, preferably Mustard oil for frying fish

(16) Salt to taste

(17) Coriander leaves for garnish

METHOD :

(1) Clean the pieces of fish thoroughly under water. Marinate it with 3 teaspoon of salt (Approximately), 1 teaspoon of Turmeric powder and 3 teaspoon of Red Chilli powder.

Keep aside for 15 minutes.

Marinated Rohu fish pieces

(2) Keep the ingredients for preparing gravy on a plate as shown, all together. The ingredients are Onion, Tomatoes, whole green chillies, whole red chillies, garlic cloves, Jeera, Cloves, green Cardamom, yellow Mustard seeds, black pepper powder, Coriander seeds (whole).

(3) Transfer these into a grinding jar and add half glass of water. Then grind the mixture to form a smooth paste as given in the images.

(4) Heat Cooking oil, preferably Mustard oil in a kadhai / wok and shallow fry all the fish pieces and keep them aside.

(5) I carried on the process of making gravy in a separate kadhai.

Heat 4 tablespoon of Cooking oil / Mustard oil in a separate kadhai / wok.

(6) Add 1/4 teaspoon of fenugreek seeds / Methi dana to this warm oil and wait for the colour to change.

(7) When this happens, add the ground paste from the grinding jar into the kadhai.

(8) Add 1/4 teaspoon of Turmeric powder and salt to taste.

Saute the paste for 3-5 minutes. 

(9) Add 1 glass of water to this and simmer for 5 minutes.

(10) The gravy will dry up, keep adding water and simmer till 20 minutes are over and the gravy is cooked well and the oil separates. 

Various stages of simmering and cooking the gravy are shown below.

(11) When the gravy is cooked and the raw smell of the onion disappears, add the fried fish pieces. 

(12) Add water to adjust the thickness of the gravy and simmer for 10 - 15 minutes over low flame

(13) Fish curry is ready.

(14) Serve it in a serving bowl, with coriander leaves garnishing over it.

(15) Serve it with plain rice and aloo bhujia / Potato dry sabji,