Spiced Indian Herbal Tea

Spiced Indian Herbal Tea and Snacks

Black Spiced Indian Herbal Tea With Lemon and Honey

Tea is the refreshing drink taken in the morning and when tired or stressed out what better than a hot cup of tea. All over the world tea is taken in one form or other. In India tea with milk and in some places tea made in pure milk is preferred. I love black tea or tea with lots of herbs and spices. My creation of this tea is not only refreshing but has medicinal values also. In normal cough and cold, headache it works wonder. My daughter in-law loves the flavor of this tea prepared by me. All ingredients are easily available in market and most of them are available in every kitchen. This tea can be taken only as herbal tea or tea leaves can be added to have black tea with a dash of lemon or with tea leaves and milk added as we Indians are normally used to.

Preparation Time: 5 min.

Making Time: 10-15 minutes

Servings: 4 cups of Tea

Ingredients Required For Making Spiced Indian Herbal Tea:

• 4 Tea cup water
• 1 Lemon Grass (Gawati chai)
• 10-12Holy Basil leaves (Tulsi)
• 1 inch Ginger (Adarak)
• 2 Black Cardamom (Badi elaichi)
• 2-4 Cloves (lawang)
• 1 Inch Piece of Cinnamon (Dalchini)
• 1 Teaspoon Fennel(saunf)

Material For Spiced Indian Herbal Tea

Directions For Making Spiced Indian Herbal Tea:

• Pound the black and green cardamom so that the seeds are crushes and the peel is split.
• Grate ginger
• Wash the basil and lemon grass.
• Cut lemon grass to pieces.

All Herbs and Spices Ready for Tea

• In a kettle take 4 cups of water.
• Add
• Black and green Cardamom
• Fennel
• Cloves
• Lemon grass
• Basil leaves

All Herbs and Spices Added to Water

• Cover the kettle and keep the kettle with water and all ingredients on heat.

Water With Herbs and Spices Kept For Boiling

Herbs and Spices Boiling in Water

• When water starts boiling lower the flame and let the water with all herbs and spices boil for 5 min.
• The water will reduce by one cup and three cups of liquid will be left.
• Add two tea spoons of your favorite tea leaves and let it stand for 10 min.

Tea Leaves Added To boiled Water with Herbs and Spices

• Boil one cup of milk.
• Add milk and sugar according to your taste and liking and herbal tea with milk is ready. My personal preference is tea without sugar.
• Get refreshed with Indian Herbal tea.

Spiced Indian Herbal Tea and Vada 

• Tips:
• Do not remove the peel of cardamoms as they impart good flavor and have lots of medicinal values.
• Do not cut the basil leaves.
• Do not boil after adding tea leaves as the tea will become very dark and bitter.
• Never add cold milk and then heat the tea it spoils the taste of tea.
• Correct practice is adding milk to tea not tea to milk this way the amount milk can be regulated without spoiling the taste of tea.
• To get the complete flavor of herbs and spices boil the water for at least 5 min.
• Amount of water should be 1 cup more than finally required amount in the case of herbal/black herbal tea as no milk is being added.

Suggested Variations:

• Filter the liquid in a cup add one tea spoon of honey and take hot piping refreshing herbal tea.

Spiced Indian Herbal Tea With Honey

• Heat the black herbal tea and filter in a cup.
• Add one teaspoon of fresh lemon juice and 2 teaspoon of honey/ sugar to taste. Serve with a wedge of lemon.

Spiced Indian Herbal Black Tea With Honey and Lemon

• Stir and have wonderful herbal black tea with lemon and honey taste.

Matar Pulav( Rice with Green Peas)

Matar Pulav

Peas have such lovely green color and sweet taste and when cooked with rice the whole appearance and of rice becomes too tempting to resist.  It is a very simple dish to cook but amazing in taste. In Northern India it is a preferred dish of rice in winters as lots of fresh green peas are available in winters. Innovation in the kitchen is every mothers forte, who has to pack the lunch box for the school going children.I used to get my reward when my children used to come grinning happily from school with every grain of the packed food polished off. Matar pulav is very convenient to keep in lunch box with pickle /chutney.

                         

Preparation Time: 10min.

Cooking Time:  30min.

Servings: Makes three large servings.

Ingredients required for Matar Pulav:

• 150gm. Rice
•  250gm. Fresh peas removed from pea pods

Peas

• 1 Tea spoon Cumin seeds Jeera (cumin seeds)
• 1-2 Bay leaves

Condiments for Matar Pulav

• 4-5 Black Pepper pods
•  1 Black cardamon
• 1/2Inch Cinnamon stick
• 3-4 Cloves
• 1/2 Tea spoon Salt (Or to taste)
• 5ml. Ghee/ cooking oil
• Water

Directions for Making Matar Pulav

• Wash rice and soak it in 150ml. water.
• Take soaked rice and cook it in a pan with large amount of water till the rice grain are almost done.
• Drain all water and if the grains are sticking to each other pour water to remove excess starch and allow all water to drain off.

Boiled rice

• Take ghee/ oil in wok and heat on high flame.

Oil being heated in wok

• When ghee/oil is hot add jeera and bay leaves,cinnamon,cloves,pepper.

Bay leaves,cloves,Black cumin,Pepper cinnamon added to hot oil

• When the seedssplutters before it starts getting dark brown add peas and stir for 2min.

Peas added when the cloves and other seeds splutter

Peas mixed with in oil and spices

• Lower the flame and add drained boiled rice. 

Boile rice added to oil, spices and peas

• Add salt,turmeric powder,red chili powder.

Turmeric,Red chili powder,salt added to rice and matar

• Mix nicely and gently.

All spices mixed with rice and matar

• Cover and cook for 5 min. on low flame, with occasional stirring.

Rice and matar with spices being cooked on low flame

• Hot Matar pulav with beautiful yellow and green color is ready to be served.

Delicious Matar Pulav ready to be served

Matar Pulav

 Matar pulav goes best with curd/raita, pickle/chutney. Dal or any gravy is not really required as it is a complete dish by itself. 

http://jyotsna-pant.blogspot.com/2012/06/mango-pickle-north-indian-style.html

http://jyotsna-pant.blogspot.com/2012/06/tangy-mango-pickle-maharashra-style.html

http://jyotsna-pant.blogspot.com/2012/06/spicy-mixed-vegetable-pickle-less-oily.html

http://jyotsna-pant.blogspot.com/2012/06/hariyali-chutney-raw-mango-chutney.html

http://jyotsna-pant.blogspot.com/2011/10/green-coriander-and-mint-chutney.html

   Tips:

• While boiling rice in pan take excess water which can be drained once the rice is cooked.
• Take thick bottom pan to boil rice.
• Do not over cook peas. They will loose color,flavor and taste.
• If you are uncomfortable in boiling rice in pan pressure cook and then wash in flowing water to remove excess starch so that the grains of rice do not stick to each other.

Suggested Variations:

• A quicker version:-
             Quick fix way of making this pulav is add peas, jeera, cinnamon,cloves,bay leaves,turmeric,red chili powder salt ghee/ oil, water to soaked rice and cook in the pressure cooker. Pulav will be ready in 5 min.
• If fresh peas (matar) are not available preserved green peas can be used.
• While boiling rice few pieces of lemon grass can be added.It gives wonderful flavor to the rice.
• Few drops of lemon juice can be added and mixed to the Pulav just before removing from gas. It will change the color of pulav to lemony yellow color.