Since we stumbled across this simple chai recipe, we have been addicted. Yes, it requires a little more effort than just adding a tea bag to a cup of boiling water, but it offers so much more taste and depth! It is better than most prefabricated chai mix that we bought in shops (in our opinion).
What is Chai?
Chai is a South Asian tea drink that is made by cooking black tea in milk and water together with a mixing spells. It is derived from the Hindi word for “tea”, which was derived from “cha”, the Chinese word for “tea”. Since chai literally means tea, it is wrong if you call this drink as a “chai tea” because you literally say “tea tea”.
Key ingredients For chai recipe
There is a certain flexibility in relation to the types of spices (and herbs if they herbs) add to their chai. For our simple Chai recipe you need the following important spices:
- Green cardamom pods
- Carnate
- Cinnamon sticks
- Ginger
If you have checked out our Easy Chicken Biryani recipe, we go through some of the most important Indian spices that you should have in your pantry, including photos of what they look like.
In addition to spices, you also need milk, water and loose black leaf tea. You can use all loose black tea leaves of your choice.
How to do chai Recipe
1. Prepare the spices – If you have a spice mill, reduce cinnamon tab, green cardamom capsules and cloves until it is a fine powder. If you don’t have a spice mill, you can use a mortar and a pestle to grind it as well as possible. It’s okay if you have larger pieces because we later radiate this.
2. Add spices and tea leaves in a pot with boiling water – Add 2 cups of water in a small saucepan and bring to a boil. Cooking, add your smashed ginger and ground spices and let it cook for a minute. Then add your 3 frequent teaspoons of black tea leaves of your choice to the pot and cook for another minute.
3. Add milk and kadna – Add your milk to the pot and wait until you cook. Watch the pot closely because it foams aggressively and potentially survived. You want to remove the pot from the heat when the foam rises, just before it overturns so that the emptying is done (ie the emptying) and repeats this process 3 to 4 times. This process is referred to as “Kadna”
4 .. stress and serve – After you turn off the heat 3 to 4 times and strain the tea through a stitch sieve to remove tea leaves and spices. Add sugar to the taste and serve them immediately.
Did you like this recipe? You may also like the following:
Easy Chai recipe
Ingredients
- 2 cups of water
- 1 tablespoon of ginger, crushed and roughly chopped
- 10 green cardamom shells
- 3-4 cloves
- 2 inch cinnamon stick
- 3 teaspoons loose black tea leaves
- 3/4 cup of milk
- 2 tablespoons of granulated sugar (you can adapt to your preferred cutness level)
Instructions
- 1. In a small saucepan you heat your two cups until it boils
- 2. If you grind the green cardamom shells, cinnamon sticks and cloves with a mortar and a stark (or a spice mill) until they are okay (does not have to be in powder form). See picture in the blog post as a reference.
- 3. Cut a tablespoon of ginger and crush it with a knife to release the juices. Roughly chop.
- 4. As soon as the water boils, add the ginger and ground spices. Let it cook for about a minute.
- 5. Add 3 frequent teaspoons of loose black leaf tea and cook them for a minute.
- 6. Add the milk and bring to a boil. Watch the pot closely to ensure that it does not pass.
- 7. When the foam rises, lower the heat. Do this 3 or 4 times. This process is referred to as “Kadna”.
- 8. After the 4th Kadna, switch off the heat and remove the chai from the stove. Let it rest for 1 minutes.
- 9. In the meantime, add 2 tablespoons of sugar (or adjust it according to your preferred softness level) into a large fluid measuring cup. Pour the chai through a sieve in the large measuring cup. Stir to dissolve sugar. Pour into individual cups to serve.
