Monica Bhide This is such a simple and lovely summer recipe from Chef Vineet Bhatia at Ziya restaurant in Mumbai. I know he does a lot of very creative, very high-end things but I also love that he focuses on simple pleasures that are charming because of (what I feel is) the principle behind their preparation: use really good quality ingredients and you don’t have to mess with them much to create a good recipe!
Banana Lassi
Chef Vineet at Ziya (The Oberoi Group)
1 banana
1 cup chilled yogurt (home-made or store-bought)
1 tablespoon of sugar
¼ teaspoon of cinnamon
Pinch of cinnamon
- Blend the banana, yogurt, sugar and cinnamon.
- Garnish with ground cinnamon
- Serve immediately
Photo – Courtesy of Ziya
Love lassi! This looks delicious with banana and cinnamon.
Not sure how one would define the difference between a lasso and a smoothie but the addition of the cinnamon would be a nice touch for this drink. For my taste, the addition of sugar is not necessary, but then that’s simply personal preference.
In the mornings I often make a lassi (or smoothie) with yogurt, bananas and a tablespoon or so of peanut butter — no doubt not authentically Indian, but delicious nonetheless. And now I’ll try adding some cinnamon.
When my bananas are at the perfect stage of ripeness — often they aren’t when you purchase them and soon can become too ripe — I peel them, break them into 3 or 4 pieces, put them into a zip-loc bag and put them in the freezer for later use in lassis/smoothies. The nice part of using frozen bananas is that they help chill the drink without a need for ice.
Cardamon is also a possibility, in combination with or instead of cinnamon, however one of the nice attributes of Lassi that makes it so refreshing is its simplicity – you can do without either if the curd (yogurt) is fresh and homemade, which tastes entirely different than store-bought yogurt, with a little ‘bite’ to it that really doesn’t need spice enhancement.