Panha – My favourite mango drink
Why Panha is a Health Drink?
Panha, my favourite mango drink is made from raw mangoes or kairi and has a wonderful cooling effect on our body during the hot summers. Rich in Vitamin C, it is especially good for the gut and weight loss. Good enough reasons to try making this tasty and healthy drink in its season, right? Well, to be honest, I make it simply because I love its khatta-meetha tangy taste. Jaggery, if preferred over sugar, enhances its nutritional benefits manifold as well.
Being the lazy lady that I am, I try to optimize my cooking effort here so that the mango panha will last me for at least some time. 🙂 So, instead of making panha as a one-time drink, I usually make the panha concentrate and refrigerate it for a week or so. This way, I get to enjoy mango panha the whole week long whenever I want in a jiffy.
Mango Panha Recipe
Ingredients for mango panha:
2-3 medium raw mangoes/kairi (Preferrably Rajapuri. The mangoes should be soft, sour and pulpy)
1-1.25 cup powdered jaggery/sugar (Adjust the sweetness to your liking and as per the sourness of the mangoes)
0.5 tsp cardamom powder
A pinch of salt to taste (Rock salt preferred)
Few strands of saffron soaked in 2-3 tbsp of warm water
To garnish: jeera powder/chaat masala/crushed mint leaves
Method:
Preparing the mango pulp:
Pressure cook the whole raw mangoes for 2-3 whistles in a pressure cooker. Cool and peel the mangoes. Then separate the pulp from its seed using your hands. Blend the pulp using a blender or a mixer. If the pulp is still stringy, strain it to get a smooth pulp. The pulp should resemble a thick homogenous paste without any lumps.
Preparing the panha concentrate:
To this prepared pulp, add sugar/jaggery and heat in a kadhai till the sweetener dissolves. Switch off the heat and add cardamom powder, saffron water, and rock salt. Mix well.
Store the pulp in the refrigerator. It stays good for a week or two.
Preparing mango panha:
Take 3-4 tbsp of panha concentrate in a glass. Add water to your desired consistency. Adjust the salt and sugar (powder) as per your taste. One can add ice cubes or use cold water to have it chilled.
Garnish it with jeera powder or chaat masala and a few crushed mint leaves. Enjoy!
Lingering Memories
My granny’s house was surrounded by trees and shrubs of all kinds. Peepal, banyan, tamarind, mango, drumstick, neem are a few that come to my mind immediately. Don’t even ask about the plants and shrubs that grew there in abundance. A variety of roses, jasmine, hibiscus, crape jasmine (tagar in Marathi), bramha kamal, bell flowers, parijaat (raat rani or night jasmine), touch-me-not plant and many others adorned the garden throughout the year.
So come summer and the mango trees laden with fruits would be the cynosure of all eyes in her residential society. The raw mangoes/kairis hanging on the trees were the perfect targets for young kids who would practise their aim at these hanging fruits with whatever stones they could lay their hands on nearby. Many a times, the stone would miss its target and would land at unexpected places but that never deterred the children from trying again. Stolen mangoes supposedly taste the sweetest and are worth the continuous effort.
My granny used to make panha from these organic raw mangoes fresh off the tree and I used to drain the glass till the very last drop asking for more. Now, the garden is long gone; granny too has long departed, but the taste still lingers on through memories…
If you enjoyed making mango panha, then do try making these other mango/kairi recipes that you may like: