added this 18 years ago
Chai (indian herbal tea with ginger)
What you need:
small leaf tea (earl grey, chinese tea etc.)
1T fresh grated ginger (the more the merrier)
1tsp cinnamon
1tsp cloves
1tsp cardamon pods
1/2tsp nutmeg
1/2tsp garam masala
soy milk
sweetener of choice
water
What you do:
Fill saucepan or pot with water and add ginger, boil. Add tea and spices, simmer, remove and simmer again till dark. Remove from heat, add soy milk and sweetener to taste. Return to heat and bring to boil three times to bring out flavour. Strain and serve. YUM!
Preparation Time:
5 mins
Cooking Time:
Servings:
Recipe Category:
SO HOW'D IT GO?
"Garam masala" simply means a blend of spices. It varies, just as there is no fixed recipe for "curry powder" there is no fixed recipe for garam masala. There are as many blends of garam masala as there are brands. The one I buy from my Asian store is a bag of whole, mixed herbs and spices, and even contains bayleaf. You're expected to grind it just before using.
lol, I really hope no one tried to sub curry powder for garam massala, that would taste... interesting. Both curry powder and garam massala have cumin as an ingredient, but the similarity stops there. Garam Massala contains: cumin, black pepper, cinnamon, cloves, coriander, and cardamom... and I think there is a recipe for it on this site somewhere.
The beverage we westerners call Chai, is called Massala Chai (spiced tea) in Hindi. There are regional differences in recipes from India, but almost every one of them says to not use Green tea. I could be wrong, but I think Green Chai is an American creation, like Oregon Chai (but at least they didn't sell out their recipe to Starbucks).
garam masala is NOT curry powder, it is a very distinctly different mix of spices as you can see upon looking at it-- it contains no turmeric.
Indian chai contains a bit of black pepper as well. The one I have from India is actually made with black tea, ginger, pepper, cardamom, cinnamon, and cloves.