Home-style buttermilk

Buttermilk is a drink served at the end of a meal and has a cooling effect.

Ingredients:

1. Fresh yoghurt  - 1 cup
2. Roasted cumin powder - 1/4 tsp
3. Powdered rock salt - as per taste (I used the ordinary salt)
4. Coriander leaves to garnish

For tempering:

• Ghee- 1/4 tsp
• Mustard seeds - 1/4 tsp
• Asafoetida powder - a pinch
• Ginger - 1/4 tsp grated
• Curry leaves - 4

Method:

• Combine yoghurt and 3 cups drinking water and churn with a traditional wooden churner or hand blender until a light froth appears on the top.
• Add roasted cumin powder and salt and garnish with coriander leaves.
• Now to make the tempering, heat the ghee. When it is hot, add the mustard seeds.When it starts to splutter, add the asafoetida powder and grated ginger. Put this tempering in to the buttermilk.
• Serve 1 cup per person towards the end of lunch.

Instead of adding water to yoghurt, you can use the buttermilk that you get after churning out the butter. Here in US that is not possible. Under those circumstances, you can use the plain yoghurt and add water to it.

Source: SUKHAM AYU- cooking at home with Ayurvedic insights

Insights from the book:

As quoted in the book: After meal drinks are known as ANUPANA in Ayurvedic texts. Buttermilk or takra, which is the diluted and churned yogurt is considered as the ideal anupana after lunch. There is often a misconception that yogurt and buttermilk have similar properties. According to ayurveda, yogurt that is hot and sour in essence, when churned in to buttermilk undergoes manthan samskara and becomes sweet after digestion and exerts a cooling effect. The sutras proclaim, "just as nectar is for Gods, buttermilk is for humans.One who consumes buttermilk daily does not suffer from any disease and diseases cured by it do not recur.