Saturday, June 02, 2012

MaTha: It's Summer Time And When The Weather Is Not Fine


The summers call for many drinks to cool the hot bodies. MaTha or herbed n spiced buttermilk is a sure way of quenching the parched throats.

It's a much better drink than your sugar laden ones, I need not stress on that. MaTha tastes best when cooled in terracotta pots with the flavor of clay lending a nice aroma but unglazed terracotta is difficult to clean as it is porous so the next best thing are there ceramic tumblers. They don't lend the earthy taste but definitely take you straight into the lush green villages where the cool breeze blows and summer calls for sitting out on hand woven cots to beat the heat while everyone discusses life as it goes by at a snail's pace.

MaTha is a lovely drink that refreshes you without giving you a sugar high yet the spices and herbs get your blood circulation going. I remember consuming bottles of MaTha when I used to visit Gujarat for work after sweating it out in the summer sun that blinded any one walking the Industrial areas.

Ingredients

1 cup thick curd
water

Masala

few leaves of Pudina
handful of cilantro
1/4 green chili
1 small knob of ginger, skin peeled
couple of blades of Lemon grass (not traditional)
salt to taste

Crush to paste using mortar and pestle, all the masala ingredients except lemon grass. Use salt  to get the aromatic oils release faster.

In a bowl beat the curd well, transfer to a bottle and make it to 1 litre by topping up with filtered water. Slip in the gently bruised lemon grass blades into the bottle. Don't crush lemon grass, the splitters will cause you to choke if you don't filter the liquid. Leave them whole and long so you can just pull out the lemon grass blades just before serving. Chill it for couple of hours.

Before serving shake the bottle to mix well, remove the lemon grass blade then pour out the MaTha into the tumblers.

Hand out to thirsty visitors and family members a chilled glass of MaTha and they will bless you for the welcome drink.

The cool cover that makes our summers bearable, a look outside the window and I feel relief when I am at home and the sun is burning outside in the high skies, while the Gulmohar blazes on the earth...I am drifting into a slumber.

2 comments:

  1. this is almsot like a forgotten drink. had it when we were kids. but in my family they made it while churning butter from fresh milk...almost like buttermilk I guess. will try it out this summer. love the gulmohar outside that huge window.

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    Replies
    1. Sayantani, Taak is plain butter milk and the spiced one is called MaTha. Extracting butter from fresh milk? or did you mean fresh curd? That Gulmohar has grown to form a curtain between my apartment and the apartment across the road I prize this view so much.

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