A friend asked me to write on lassi and ghol. I offered to send the recipe (so to say) by email. My friend insisted it be a blog.
So, now I do blogs on request. Ha Ha
This Ghol business is very dicey indeed, because it is a very Bengali ( and therefore, regional)concept, where the amount of curd required to make the ghol can vary from a little bit to a fair amount depending on individual taste. Moreover the art of making thick curd is not really known to Bengal. Simply because buffalo milk (very thick creamy milk) is not popular in Bengal.
The idea of ghol is very simple . A bit of dahi, a fair bit of sugar, a pinch of salt stirred together with iced water and the ghol is ready. My aunt-in-law.... a pucca ghoti makes something called doi er shorbot. This stuff is delicious and really refreshing. Doi er shorbot is a little thicker than ghol. A little less sweet, a bit of salt and a good pinch of gondhoraj lebu. Really ,this is heavenly on a hot summer afternoon after I have braved the traffic to get to her old and beautiful house in Bowbazar.
The ghol and the do ier shorbot probably came from East Bengal where the Portuguese, and later the Muslim culture called for a burhani after a rich rice-based meal.
The lassi is quintessentially a drink of North India. Be it Punjab, be it Uttar Pradesh or even Haryana, lassi is a household drink. The area is rich agricultural land with a propensity of milch cattle breeding. Moreover it is extremely hot and dry in summer. The milk (quite a high production), does not keep fresh for very long. Rabri, khowa, ghee and other milk products are made from fresh milk, just as much dahi is made. From dahi is made mathha (buttermilk) and lassi.
The art of making lassi is best known to people native of Punjab. Thick creamy Bhains-ka-dudh dahi is put in a lota. This is churned with a wooden ghotli ...... by hand. This churning is the real art, because the dahi has to liquidise, but not separate into whey. Sugar is added and the entire drink is poured into tall metal glasses, frothy at the top, and thick and creamy underneath. There is nothing....really nothing to beat a Punjabi lassi, made in a village in Punjab, by a buxom Sardarni, served by the pretty young daughter.The lassi is equally popular in Uttar Pradesh, and also in Rajastan. The UP lassi is perhaps a little less thick. There is a shop on Gowdhuli, Banaras, where they serve very,very good lassi, with a piece of cream on top. This is typically UP. Punjab will not have anything but the froth on the top. Rajasthan most often adds a pinch of salt, or sometimes methi. Tastes alright, but I'd vote for the Punjab ki lassi or my favourite Banarasi lassi.
Lassi today is an ubiquitous drink available (from Kashmir to Kanyakumari type) everywhere. Best to avoid the lassi in South India though. It's watery, sour and tastes like nothing on earth. Bangalore, Goa, Chennai etc has other stuff to offer.... Vijay Mallya has done extremely well in the South !!!!
Mathha is another drink which should feature on this post. it's buttermilk or whey or call it what you like. It is popular in North India and is really more effective against the summer heat. The Chhaach of Gujarat and Rajasthan is a close relative of the mattha. Chhaach is tempered and is spiced.
The essential thing to remember in making lassi or ghol is NOT to use an electric blender or mixer. The right thing to use is a lota and ghotli (a wooden rod with angled arms) which can churn the curd but does not make it a homogenised liquid. Lassi made in an electric blender is hardly the real stuff. By the way, in 1998, Sanjoy and I bought lassi for all of us.... kids and driver and all.... on the Chandigarh Highway. The lassi was being made in a green and white Kelvinator washing machine and was being sold in buckets. Rs 20 for a bucketful. Pretty good lassi, too.
My mother (fearing my frequent heat stroke attacks) always had mattha and lassi and nimbu pani ready for me. Infact, in summer I ate very little during the day ..... the home-made dahi based drinks and keri-pani and fruits kept my hunger at bay. In winter (fearing asthma attacks) Ma had me on an Ovaltine and milk diet. Both diets were appreciated by me. It meant pampering and extra attention. I could "create" for hours anytime there seemed to be a deficit of the motherly attention.
There are other summer drinks. Nimbu Pani (best made at home, but the old lady at Lalbagh palace is very near it). When I was very young Ma used to take me to Sita Chaudhuri's house. I had a kalojam er shorbot once, and on another occasion a falsa shorbot. I have never had these two very exotic shorbot ever. I tried to make it at home....didn't taste the same. I make aam-dudh for my childen at home. They love it. The Western Indian concept of aam-ras is also very cooling. The Bengali aam-pora-shorbot has no equal. It should ideally be made by scalding the small raw mangoes in the coal fired stoves. Another Bengali drink is the Bel er shorbot or paana. Good if it is made well. Somehow, I am not too fond of it. In Bihar they make an essence of Beli flower and add it to chilled sugar-water. Very good and very cooling. Watermelon can be crushed and made into a cool and refereshing drink. Unfortunately my family does not like watermelon in any form. All over India, mint (pudina) is used for a summer drink. I cannot comment on this. I hate mint.
Sunita, in all her wisdom, picked me write about the ghol and the lassi.I strayed. A lot more could have been written, But I'll keep it for another post...some othe day. I have not used italics for regional language terms. This post is meant to be regional.Let it remain so.
I include here a poem by Shantam which was published in the school rag. It's called "Sherbet Dreams". Its too small a print . I could not do a good job ofthe scan-image-copy. Perhaps Sajani can make an attempt to read it.
Friday, March 26, 2010
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3 comments:
Thanks for that No Point Left Behind blog-on-request! But I have had lassi in Delhi with malai ON TOP of the foaming froth. In fact two phrases I love about mera India are nimbu maarke and then malai maarke!
I love anything that is nimbu maarke just anything.
ref: the malai. of course you can get malai topped lassi ..... anywhere. what i meant was traditionally the punjabis have a frothy lassi, without the malai topping.
incidentally, near jama masjid, delhi, there is a guy called bittu. he makes pakoras. excellent ones. twenty yards to his right there is this guy selling lassi. creamy, frothy and the price varies on the 'haat' basis. he pours and re-pours the lassi from one glass to another, adding on to the froth, and the distance (in haats) between the pouring. ek haat lassi being the least expensive, going up to teen haat lassi. Next time you are in delhi, make it a point to visit bittu and also have a do-haat lassi.
And that is what I meant too. Punjabi home made lassi also comes with malai on top of the froth. Old timers insisted on and relished the creme de la creme. Nowadays of course, with more weighty issues prevailing,people ask before adding.
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