Falooda (in a Shot Glass!)

I am without my camera from past few days and I feel totally handicapped. With it becoming a part of my routine life, just like any other day to day activity like cooking, serving and then photographing the cooked :). Just being left alone without it pushes me to be impulsive and is driving me crazy. It's one of those essentials without which I am not at ease. For the moment, I am left with my Sony Ericsson C510 which I hardly use and most definitely not when it comes to food photography!

I feel almost guilty posting this here. This one comes from my drafts that's been sitting idle for long. With the day being fairly warm and sunny, what followed was a very simple South Indian lunch. And to end it's simplicity, we treated ourselves with this gorgeous Indian beverage dessert, Falooda. I am not sure if I would call this a beverage or a dessert! Either ways, they are great for sure!

Falooda, a popular chilled beverage dessert is served in tall glasses, filled to the brim and topped with dollops of ice cream is made primarily by mixing delicately flavored rose milk with vermicelli and tapioca seeds. What a perfect way to cool off the summer heat! With the addition of vermicelli, tapioca seeds and rose milk, this can get quite filling. So make sure you have your hunger pangs on, else this can get too stodgy.

This is one such treats that brings reminiscence of my childhood. Those evening hangouts on Mumbai streets or Pabbas Ice cream parlors in Mangalore, where shopping craze were endless and when hunger pangs meddled us through those moments, a dash into these ice cream parlors with family and friends meant time spent over good food, chit chat talks and stress unwound.

Falooda

INGREDIENTS

1/2 cup falooda sev (fine roasted vermicelli)
1 cup chilled milk
Sugar, to taste
Few almonds and pistachios, chopped
2 tbsps sabza, (basil seeds, tukmaria)
1/4 tsp rose essence
2 scoops ice cream of your choice

DIRECTIONS

Into the chilled milk, add the sugar and rose essence to taste and mix well. Add one scoop of vanilla ice cream to this and churn well. This gives it a nice thick texture. Chill this in refrigerator till it's needed.

Next, boil the vermicelli in water till cooked al dente. Strain the cooked vermicelli and keep them aside to cool. Discard the water. Chill this as well in refrigerator till needed.

In a bowl, submerge the sabza seeds (also known as Basis seeds) in sufficient water for about 20-30 mins. These seeds swell up beautifully and will look transparent with an eye at the center. Strain and discard the excess water. Reserve the puffed up subza for assembling the falooda.

Assemble the Falooda:

I chose shot glasses to assemble the Falooda. Traditionally, this is done in tall glasses. So make your choice. In each glass, place the vermicelli till it reaches 1/5th the glass height. Top this with a tablespoon or more of soaked sabza seeds.

Pour in the chilled rose milk till just below the rim. Add the chopped nuts and top it a scoop of ice cream of your choice. Garnish with candied cherries. Serve chilled.

Most ice cream parlors add jelly cubes to this. I opted to leave it as I am not very fond of them. You may add them as per your preference. Also care for how much of rose essence you use. The one I used was pretty strong, just a few drops were sufficient to bring deep flavors and colors. You may opt for rose syrup too. But judge how much of it you would need.

Instead of serving these in tall glasses, I chose for smaller treats in shot glasses since it was our post lunch dessert. We loved this thought. They were neither too filling nor heavy, just right. This pot of falooda gorgeously topped with ice cream went on a melting spree and it played a spoilt sport for my photography that sunny day. Rose is one of my favorite flavors and least exploited one too, so that gives me another excuse to make these more often. Nevertheless, this is something I will make more often, not just for us, but for future get-together parties too.