Salted lassi

  • 2.5 cups curd – cold and fresh (yogurt)
  • 1 cup water – cold or at room temperature
  • 1 teaspoon black salt or regular salt or edible rock salt, as required
  • 1 ½ teaspoons Simba Mbili ground cumin
  • 6 to 7 mint leaves

Making salted lassi

  • Take the curd and water in a bowl or pan. Season with salt and roasted cumin powder.
  • To make your own roasted ground cumin, dry roast cumin seeds in a small skillet or frying pan until fragrant. Then crush in a mortar-pestle or grind finely in a spice-grinder.
  • With a wired whisk blend everything well till smooth. A Blender or an immersion blender also works.
  • Pour the salted lassi in glasses. Garnish with mint leaves. You can add a few ice cubes if you like. If you wish to avoid the ice cubes, then make lassi with chilled yogurt and cold water.

Serving suggestions

  • Serve lassi as a refreshing drink during the daytime or serve it as drink it after any indian meal.
  • While serving sweet lassi, garnish with some chopped nuts like pistachios or almonds.
  • Salted lassi can be topped with fresh mint or coriander leaves and a light sprinkling of roasted cumin powder, red chilli powder (cayenne pepper) or chaat masala.
    Storage
  • Store your leftover lassi it in the refrigerator for 1 to 2 days. No need to add ice cubes if you plan to store.

Notes

  • Scaling: all of the three lassi recipes can be doubled or tripled to make a large batch.
  • Freshness: for the best lassi experience make sure to use curd that has not gone sour. The curd or yogurt should be fresh, cold and not rancid. I always make lassi with freshly set homemade curd and keep it the fridge for a couple of hours to make it cold.
  • Flavorings for sweet lassi: for the sweet lassi recipe, you can add either cardamom powder or rose water or even adding both these flavorings work well. You could also choose to skip or include saffron in your sweet lassi recipe. Omit adding any of the flavoring ingredients if you don’t have them.
  • Consistency: the consistency of all the three lassi recipe is neither thick nor thin. For a thinner consistency, add slightly more water but do not add plenty of water as this will dilute the flavors and the sweetness or saltiness. For a thicker lassi, add less water or do not add water at all.
  • Sweeteners: for sweet lassi, sugar is the preferred choice of sweetener. But you can opt to add palm sugar (as i have done in the masala lassi) or coconut sugar or jaggery.