Preparation time : 5 minutes
Cooking time : 8 minutes
Serves : 5 members
Description
Early morning kitchen at my mother in law’s place would always have a pot full of palm sugar and ginger bubbling away in the stove top. The aroma would wake you up ( as my room was just beside the kitchen ) from your sleep signalling it’s time to wake up. Sleepy me, would enter the kitchen to get tea for hubby dear and see huge vessels of fresh cows milk and thickly set creamy full fat curd all ready to be sold out. As I never drink milk, tea or coffee .. I would just enjoy the aroma and the sight of fresh dairy produce there. Later one day hubby dear asked me to get karupetti kaapi instead of his regular masala chai. Karupetti kaapi was made in a large vessel mainly to be given to helping hands at home. It is a very lightly coloured hot drink which was watery, sweet and spiced with ginger flavour. This kaapi is had only in steel tumblers not sure why. I took the karupetti kaapi for hubby dear. He asks for mixture ( South Indian snack ), I was like so early in the morning with a million things about this in mind. He sprinkles the crispy mixture over the hot karupetti kaapi and drinks it reading his morning news paper. I found it so weird but wanted to give a try to this new combination. I take a sip from hubby dears steel tumbler. The crispy mixture which has soaked up a little of the karupetti kaapi inside them swelled a bit yet crispy, along with the sweet karupetti kaapi was a burst of flavour’s and textures in one mouth. At times the mixture is replaced with crushed muruku ( a South Indian deep fried crispy snack made with rice flour and urad dal flour ) From then on, when ever I feel like having a hot drink, I always end up with a glass of karupetti kaapi in hand. The mixture or the muruku is had only when I want to treat myself. Though this drink is called kaapi ( coffee ) it’s made with tea dust. A Few funny facts of our authentic recipes always with a twist to it like me I guess.
Ingredients
Ingredients | Quantity |
|---|---|
| Karupetti / palm jaggery | 1/4 kg powdered |
| Tea dust | 1 tablespoon |
| Water | 4 glasses |
| Milk | 1/2 glass |
| Ginger | 1 and 1/2 inch piece crushed |
Method
- Boil karupetti, water and crushed ginger together. Add tea dust and boil further for two minutes. Remove from heat and keep closed for ten minutes. Strain the above clear liquid alone leaving behind the scum below.
- Add hot milk to the clear strained solution. Garnish the kaapi with mixture or broken murukku and serve hot.
