Sunday, September 24, 2006

Non-icy lassi

Nearly two years ago my SO and I posted our lassi recipe. While we love that recipe (and have made it dozens of times since posting it), we've noticed that we've never gotten a lassi like ours at an Indian restaurant. Instead, restaurant lassis are always smooth, and much frothier than our ice-based recipe (which is filled with ice particles and has almost no froth). Today we finally tried making lassi with cold water instead of ice, and the secret of non-icy lassis was revealed.

So, if you want a sweetened yogurt drink with lots of little ice particles in it to cool you off on a hot summer's day, try our ice-based lassi; if you instead want a light, airy lassi that isn't quite as cold, but may be more like what you've had at Indian restaurants, try this recipe. Since we enjoyed this lassi just as much as our ice-based one, it's this week's end-of-the-week recipe blogging post.

2 cups whole-milk plain yogurt (we use Trader Joe's "Cream Line")
7 tablespoons (scant 1/2 cup) sugar
3/4 cup cold water

1. Mix yogurt and sugar together in a blender.
2. Add water, and blend until well combined and frothy (~1 minute).
3. Serve.

This recipe is a modified version of our ice-based lassi.

[Updated February 2007 to change the proportions to better reflect what we're currently making. The old recipe was 1 1/2 cups whole-milk plain yogurt, 6 tablespoons sugar, and 1/2 cup cold water]

1 comment:

Radagast said...

Importing comments:

Radagast
Oh, we absolutely adore lassi, especially with spicy foods. It should be a pretty healthy drink - you're basically drinking yogurt (which is a lot healthier than, say, milkshakes and sodas).

It sounds like chaas is called whey in English (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whey). We've tried it after making paneer, and it tasted rather watery and lemony to us. Do you modify the chaas at all, or just drink it straight?
September 27, 2006, 10:09:27 AM PDT – Like – Reply

Eldrich
interesting. so you actually tried lassi? that's something like the staple summer cooler over here in bombay. lovely drink right? no one thinks twice before gulping it down here though i wonder if the rest of the world ponders over it's nutritive value,you know, the calories and stuff. try some of our other varities of lassi. try chaas even. it's the stuff that's left over after you remove the solid mass from curdled milk. don't know what's it's called in english. sorry!
September 25, 2006, 12:21:21 AM PD