Falooda

Indian Summers are oppressively hot and humid. And kids and adults would do anything to keep cool. Falooda is sold as THE thing to cool your body down and it is freely avilable in all the iceream shops, bakeries and street food vendors. It was introduced to India by the Moghuls - so it is a Middle Eastern dish except the Indians added their own twist to it.  The twist is the secret syrup - called Roohafza that you will find in all sorts of soft drinks, lemonade, fizzy sherbet drinks and so on. I tend to use Roohafza very sparingly as it is extremely sweet. But it has an amazing smell of roses and a bright pink colour that looks great on desserts.

To explain the Falooda to Aussies - it is like an Eton Mess - a jumble of things put together with different textures and flavours. I made this for my birthday last week but the pictures taken at night were not particularly good.  Luckily I had the ingredients so I could make it again for the photograph.

Ingredients:

8 tablespoons of Roohafza syrup

1 cup milk

1 carton good quality vanilla icecream

2 tablespoons of sweet basil seeds soaked in water

(These seeds are small and black and swell up to over twice their size if left in water for about 20 minutes)

rose essence

1 tablespoon sugar (optional)

1 cup of falooda sev (or angel hair rice vermicelli)

1 carton of strawberry jelly

chopped pistachios

flaked almonds

rose petals

Make the jelly accpording to the instructions on the packet. Pour into a greased container and let it set. Once it is set, cut it into small 1 cm cubes and set aside.

Make the noodles according to the instructions on the pack. When it is cooked, cut it into bite sized pieces and leave it in the water until it is time to assemble the dessert. 

Boil the milk, add a few drops of rose essence and sugar if needed. Leave in the fridge to chill.

To assemble dessert:

Drain noodles and set aside.

Drain basil seeds and set aside.

Take a cocktail glass / dessert cup.  Add a tablespoon of roohafza syrup. Rotate the cup so that the syrup coats the inside of the glass.

Next add a couple of tablespoons of vermicelli, soaked basil seeds, jelly pieces, some milk, icecream, some more vermicelli and basil seeds.

Top it off with rose petals, pistachios, flaked almonds and a drizzle of roohafza syrup.

Serve immediately.