Gur ki chai, made so the milk never splits

Jaggery tea is easy once you know the one rule: the gur goes in off the heat. Two cups, eight minutes, from our own kitchen.

Every morning · Prep 2 min · Cook 8 min · Total 10 min · Makes 2 regular cups · Indian beverage

This is the recipe we are asked for more than any other, and the question behind it is almost always the same: why did my chai curdle? The answer is timing. Jaggery is slightly acidic, and milk that is boiling hard will split the moment it meets it.

Take the pan off the fire, let the bubbles settle, stir the gur in then. That is the whole trick. Everything below is just a good cup of chai built around it.

Ingredients

• 1 cup Water
• 1 cup Full-cream milk
• 2 tsp Tea leaves
• 1 inch piece Ginger, crushed
• 2, lightly crushed Green cardamom
• 2 level tsp ShuddhGaon jaggery powder

Method

1. Start the water Put the water, the crushed ginger and the cardamom in a pan and bring it to a boil. Let it bubble for a minute so the ginger gives up its heat into the water.
2. Add the tea leaves Stir in the tea leaves and simmer for 2 minutes, until the water is a deep reddish brown.
3. Pour in the milk Add the milk and bring it back to a gentle boil. Simmer for 2 to 3 minutes, lifting the pan off the flame if it threatens to rise over the rim.
4. Take the pan off the heat This is the step people skip. Move the pan off the stove and wait about twenty seconds, until the surface has stopped moving.
5. Stir in the jaggery Add the jaggery powder and stir. It disappears in a few seconds. A cube takes about half a minute and a bit more stirring.
6. Strain and serve Pour through a strainer into two cups and drink it hot. Chai that sits and is reheated with gur already in it can still split.

With our jaggery

Our powder measures spoon for spoon against white sugar, so a cup you used to make with one teaspoon of sugar takes one teaspoon of jaggery powder. The cubes are the easier option if you make one cup at a time: one cube for a regular cup, one and a half for a large or strong one. Jaggery is not a neutral sweetener, it carries a caramel note from the cane, so if the flavour feels strong on day one, start at three-quarters of your usual quantity and work up over a week.

Tips from our kitchen

• Or add it at the very start The other order that works is jaggery into the water with the tea leaves, before any milk goes in. What never works is gur into milk at a rolling boil.
• For coffee and haldi doodh One teaspoon into the filter coffee decoction rather than the milk. For warm milk, one to two teaspoons stirred until it disappears.
• Keep a dry spoon in the jar A spoon still wet from the cup is the fastest way to turn a free-flowing jar into a solid block.

The jaggery this recipe is made with

• ShuddhGaon Jaggery Cubes — Pure sugarcane jaggery, cut into ready-to-use cubes
• ShuddhGaon Jaggery Powder — Fine gur shakkar that melts into tea, coffee and milk
• ShuddhGaon Jaggery Combo — Cubes for the cup, powder for the kitchen

More recipes with gur

• Gur ki roti, the meethi roti from a village kitchen
• Sakkarai pongal made with nattu sakkarai
• Thekua, the Chhath prasad made with atta and gur

All jaggery recipes