BM #112 : Week 2, Day 2
Theme : Summer Coolers

Panagam is a traditional drink made during Sri Rama Navami. It falls in the month of March, which also marks the beginning of hot weather in India. This is a perfect summer cooler for the weather there.

We are all big fans of panagam, but somehow we don’t prepare it at home often enough. One reason is the amount of jaggery that goes into this drink. To make a sweet panagam, you do need to add a good amount of jaggery. The recipe is very simple with very few ingredients. I don’t use jaggery or dry ginger powder on a regular basis, but these are my pantry staples. These stay good for a long time, so if you buy it once, it’s going to be there for a longtime. I used bottled lemon juice concentrate for this, fresh lemon juice is more preferable though. Fresh ginger juice can also be used instead of dry ginger powder. The recipe is more of a guide, you can always adjust the ingredients to suit your taste buds.

Read on for the recipe.

Ingredients:

• 2 cups water
• 4 tablespoons powdered jaggery or adjust per taste
• 1 teaspoon dry ginger powder
• 1 tablespoon lemon juice
• A pinch of ground cardamom or two cardamom pods lightly crushed

Method:

1. In a big bowl, add the water and powdered jaggery. Mix well with a spoon. I get jaggery powder and it’s free of impurities, so I don’t have to filter it out. You will have to filter if the jaggery you are using has some impurities.
2. Add the ginger powder , cardamom and 2 teaspoons of lemon juice. Taste test and add the remaining one teaspoon if needed.
3. Refrigerate until the time of serving.

Check out the Blogging Marathon page for the other Blogging Marathoners doing this Week

Sending this post to Srivalli’s Kids delight event , hosted by Usha this month. The theme is Kid friendly Summer Coolers.