Mini celebration today, re-instate sherbets

Those who finish their ICSE finals today will be relieved, jubilant, feeling free! Rachita, my older daughter, wants to party but Kriti my younger one is still in the midst of her final exams! Well, Alyona can best handle the situation I feel. Rachita was also telling me about some of the smses that have already started doing the rounds for April Fools Day?I mean, this is misusing technology but I guess it is the order of the day.

Off to Dubai and as I have already told you about the Zee Dubai Mega Mela let me also tell you that the food demos have something in store for you: something new and intriguing and brand new compositions, something I call zara hat ke, that are of course, easy to do at home but with an exotic finish. Now, I am not going to reveal the recipes here, YET. I am going to demonstrate two recipes on each of the three days April 1, 2 and 3.

What I also want to do is re-introduce the joys of drinking sherbet at home. This will definitely decrease the ?need? for aerated drinks and introduce traditional cooling methods at home. In the earlier times medicinal herbs, vegetable extracts, roots and sandalwood were added to enhance the therapeutic and nutritional properties of sherbets. These were truly healthy! But with time the pure ingredients have slowly made their way out. Sherbets are not just sweet coloured beverages. They are high in vitamin content and are rich sources of natural antioxidants. As most of them are sugar syrup based one should remember that they have calories as well. Sherbets maintain and adjust the body?s water and electrolyte balance, encourage the function of liver and kidneys, check vomiting, diarrhoea and indigestion. The organic types are pure syrups of fruits or floral extracts. You can choose from orange, pineapple, carrot, watermelon, rose, kewra. Synthetic sherbets are made with essences and are not high on my favourite drinks list. Moreover they are slightly acidic too. There is no limit to the types of synthetic sherbets that can be produced!

So what to look out for? Gulab or rose sherbet: Highly held as a blood purifier. If it is made from pure gulab jal that has been distilled from desi gulab petals, then you have something that is anti-acidic, anti-flatulent and rich in antioxidants. Khus sherbet is the pure extract of khus roots. It relieves acidity and purifies blood. The khus extract is obtained through a meticulous process and is blended with herbs to enhance the quality. Intake of khus syrup gives instant relief from heat stroke. It has diuretic properties too. Chandan sherbet is an exotic extract of edible chandan derived through conventional methods. Traditionally it was used as a sedative but it is equally efficient as a cardiac tonic, a stimulant and an antiseptic. It has a soothing effect on skin through its blood purifying properties. It can also be used to alleviate gastric irritability. I could go on about zafrani and badam and faalsa and kokum?..but going to catch a flight now.

And now to give foods a twist and increase the pleasures of April 1.

Cheese Fondue with Pavbhaji Masala

Paan Kulfi

Hariyali Paneer Makhani

Till later then,

Sanjeev Kapoor.