Falooda

Nothing in it is cooked at the point of serving: it is layered cold in a glass.

Vegetarian, but not vegan — contains dairy (milk).

Ingredients

• 80 g fine vermicelli, of wheat, arrowroot, cornflour or sago
• 4 tablespoons sweet basil seeds
• 8 tablespoons rose syrup
• 800 ml cold milk
• 2 tablespoons sugar
• 4 pieces Kulfi, as on its own page, to top
• 20 g pistachios, chopped

Method

1. NOTHING IN IT IS COOKED AT THE POINT OF SERVING: IT IS LAYERED COLD IN A GLASS. Its article gives the build rather than a recipe -- rose syrup, vermicelli and sweet basil seeds mixed with milk, often served with kulfi -- and that is genuinely all of it. Everything is prepared ahead and chilled, and the making of it is an assembly. Served warm, or stirred into one colour, it stops being falooda and becomes a milkshake.
2. THE BASIL SEEDS ARE SOAKED, NOT COOKED. Two tablespoons in a cup of cold water for twenty minutes, until each one has swollen into a grey jelly around a black centre. They will not soften in milk and they cannot be hurried with heat.
3. THE VERMICELLI IS BOILED, RINSED COLD AND DRAINED HARD. Two or three minutes, then straight under the cold tap. Warm noodles curdle nothing but they do go gluey and sit in a lump.
4. ITS ARTICLE ALLOWS FOUR DIFFERENT NOODLES AND THEY ARE NOT THE SAME. Wheat, arrowroot, cornflour or sago. Wheat is chewy and opaque; the starch ones are slippery and translucent. Say which you used.
5. THE MILK IS SWEETENED LIGHTLY AND KEPT VERY COLD. Two spoonfuls of sugar in eight hundred millilitres. The rose syrup carries most of the sweetness and the milk should not compete.
6. THE SYRUP GOES IN THE BOTTOM OF THE GLASS AND IS LEFT THERE. Two tablespoons per glass, undisturbed. The red band at the base is how it is meant to look.
7. THEN THE SEEDS, THEN THE NOODLES, THEN THE MILK POURED SLOWLY. Pour down the inside of the glass against a spoon so the layers stay where they are put.
8. THE KULFI GOES ON AT THE LAST MOMENT. A piece on top, the pistachios over it, and it is carried to the table at once.
9. IT IS DRUNK AND EATEN AT THE SAME TIME, SO IT WANTS A SPOON AND A STRAW. The noodles and seeds will not come up a straw and the milk will not stay on a spoon.

Our own recipe. This one was written for this site rather than taken from anywhere, so there is no source to point you at. The quantities and the order of the steps are choices, not the only way to do it.

Filed under India · All recipes