Fancy a cuppa?

Anjum Anand is a celebrity chef based out of London and we used to religiously follow her cookery shows on BBC from our Nottingham days. Her show 'Indian Food Made Easy' was quite interesting and she used to come up with the simplest recipes and healthy ones, for that matter. I remember trying out one of her dal recipes and it was easy and tasty.... I have to dig it up from the BBCiPlayer, try it out again and post it here for my personal reference.

I don't know if its the weather change or the power work out sessions where I sweat a lot and then walk out into the cold, that's causing this, but my throat has been acting a bit weird lately. Its either the start of a sore throat or even worse a cold. So yesterday after contemplating with myself on whether i should or should not take the over -size umbrella with me to the gym and then worry about it not fitting into my locker and dragging it all around, I decided to just use my hoody to protect myself from the rain....outcome of which was a sneeze after I got home and I knew I was gonna get into trouble if I didn't act fast. So I made this peppery, gingery, spicy masala chai after a hot water bath and boy did it feel great (the bath and the Chai btw!). I wouldn't say it cured my throat issue instantly, but it sure did ease it a bit and offered some sort of comfort. A couple of days more with the chai and im sure it will be taken care of. This Masala Chai, Anjum style, has come to our rescue a lot of times but most of all its unbelievably therapeutic on a cold, rainy day.

Masala Chai (adapted from BBC Food- makes 1 large Coffee Mug)

Milk- 300ml

Water- 150ml

Peppercorns- 4

Cardamom- 3

Fresh Ginger- 1 tsp, peeled and chopped

Cinnamon Stick- half inch

Sugar- to taste

Tea Bag- 1

Lightly crush the peppercorns, ginger, cinnamon, fennel and cardamom in a pestle and mortar and add to the milk and water. Place over medium heat and bring to a boil.

Turn the heat down and simmer for about 10 to 15 minutes, making sure the milk doesn't boil over.

When the volume has significantly reduced to about a cup, add the tea bag and simmer for some more time. If you don't need strong tea, take it out after a minute.

Strain into a cup and add the sugar. Serve Hottttt!

Notes: The original recipe calls for a pinch of fennel seeds which I omitted, since I didn't have any.

I also reduced the cardamom pods significantly since I didn't want it to over power the ginger and pepper.

I use whole milk and I don like my tea milky, so i sometimes reduce the milk significantly.