Aam
Panna (आम पन्ना) is a very popular summer drink in North India. It’s primary ingredient is
pulp extracted from boiled/roasted green mangoes. Roasted mango version is the
best one though not easily available these days, thanks to lack of wood/coal
fired ovens in households
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| Chilled Aam Panna |
Aam
Panna has health benefits too. It helps in fighting heat stroke and exhaustion.
It quenches thirst caused by excessive sweating. In summer you can find lots of
mobile Aam Panna shops in most of the cities in North India. The actual taste
will vary from place to place according to the mango variety and the spices added.
Mint flavoured Aam Panna is probably most popular. We also get cardamom
(Elaichi), black pepper, cumin (Jeera), ginger (Adrak) flavours. You can use
one or more spices to make your own version. I like it with mint, black pepper and cumin seeds. Normally I prefer it with ice
but it tastes equally good without ice.
So
here is my recipe for Aam Panna. This recipe for Aam Panna is not with exact measures
and there are several reasons for this. One of the reasons is that the core/seed
of the mangoes will vary in size depending on the variety hence the amount of
pulp that can be extracted will also vary. The amount of fibre content in the
mango can also give difference in the pulp quantity. Again the salt required in
this drink will vary according to the inherent sourness of the green mangoes.
Sugar quantity can be varied according to personal choice. It will taste good
even without sugar.
Recipe
Serves:
3-4 glasses
Ingredients:
1. Raw mangoes – 500 gm
2. Sugar – As per taste
3. Salt/rock salt – As per taste
4. Black pepper corns – 4-5 corns
crushed roughly
5. Cumin (Jeera) seeds – 10-15,
crushed roughly
Procedure:
Preparing the mango pulp:
1. Wash the mangoes. Put them in a
pressure cooker and pour water till the mangoes are fully under water. Pressure
cook for 1 whistle, or if required 2 whistles.
2. Once the pressure has come to
normal, open the pressure cooker and drain the water.
WARNING – Even though the
outside of the mangoes may feel cool, the core can be very hot even after 20-30
minutes, so take precautions to check the temperature of the mangoes before
trying to peel them in the next step. You can easily scald your fingers if not careful.
3. Let the mangoes cool down for
20-30 minutes and then peel the mangoes. The skin should come off very easily.
4. Add
the peels and the peeled mangoes into a deep vessel and add about 2 cups of
water and squeeze out the pulp from the mangoes and the peels. Discard the
peels and the core.
5. Sieve the pulp through a large
rough strainer/filter to discard the fibre from the pulp.
6. Now this pulp can be bottled
and refrigerated as it is and used later.
Preparing the drink:
1. Take 2-3 tbsp of the pulp and to that add water about 3 times the volume of the pulp, sugar and salt and blend. Do a bit of trial and
error to arrive at the consistency that you would prefer.
2. Add the crushed black pepper
corns and cumin seeds and blend again.
3. You can add ice cubes/crushed
ice before serving, although it’s optional.
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| Aam Panna, without ice |
So try this out and share with us about your experience with Aam Panna.
