The same flour that warms you also cools you, and which one it does depends entirely on what you do with it. Packed into a paratha or a litti and taken hot, sattu is winter food and heavy work food. Stirred into cold water, it is the opposite — the drink carried into the fields at midday, sold from handcarts at every bus stand between Patna and Banaras through the worst of May, and drunk by people who have no intention of stopping to eat. It comes two ways and the household decides. Namkeen is the working version: black salt, roasted cumin, lemon, a chopped green chilli and often raw onion, thin enough to drink down in one. Meetha takes gur or sugar and a little black salt behind it, and is what a child is handed. It was for a long time called poor man’s food and is now sold as a protein supplement, which tells you more about the people doing the selling than about the drink.
INGREDIENTS
- 8 tbsp sattu (roasted black chickpea flour)
- 1.2 litres cold water
- 2 tbsp lemon juice
- 1 tsp black salt (kala namak)
- 1 tsp roasted cumin powder
- ½ tsp salt
- 1 green chilli (very finely chopped)
- 1 small onion (very finely chopped)
- a handful of mint leaves (torn)
- a handful of coriander leaves (chopped)
- 4 tbsp block jaggery (gur, grated, for the sweet version)
- ice (to serve)
METHOD
- For the namkeen version, put the sattu in a jug and add about 200ml of the cold water a splash at a time, whisking to a completely smooth thin paste with no lumps.
- Whisk in the remaining water.
- Add the lemon juice, black salt, roasted cumin and salt and stir well.
- Stir through the green chilli, onion, mint and coriander.
- Taste. It should be sharply salty and sour, not gentle.
- Pour over ice and drink at once, stirring the glass if it stands.
- For the meetha version, make the same smooth paste with the sattu and water.
- Dissolve the grated jaggery in a little warm water, cool it, and stir it in.
- Add the lemon juice and a pinch of black salt only, leaving out the cumin, chilli, onion and herbs.
- Pour over ice and serve immediately.
