Rose Falooda

Near Crawford Market at eleven at night the falooda glasses come out already sweating. You see the whole thing before you taste any of it: black sabja seeds in their grey jelly settled at the bottom, a band of magenta syrup above them, white vermicelli suspended in cold milk, then a scoop of ice cream sitting on top with chopped pistachio scattered over. The straw goes down through all of it at once. The first pull is milk and rose. The second brings up the seeds, which pop softly against the roof of your mouth, and the sev, which is slippery and almost tasteless and exactly right.

The milk in a falooda is sweetened on its own, and it has to be sweetened lightly, because the rose syrup and the ice cream are both already sweet and a heavy hand turns the whole glass sickly by the third mouthful. Mishri is easy to control here. Crushed fine and stirred into cold milk it goes in within about a minute, gives a soft round sweetness with no sugary edge, and leaves plenty of room for the rose to come through. Sweeten the milk before you chill it and it stays clean and thin, which is exactly how falooda milk should drink — nothing like a milkshake.

Everything must be cold and it must be built at the last minute. Warm sev turns the milk cloudy and gluey; sabja that has not been drained properly thins it out; and a glass assembled ten minutes before serving collapses into one uniform pink mixture with no layers left. Chill the milk, the glasses and the cooked sev separately, then build and carry it straight to the table.

How to make it

1. Put the sabja seeds in ½ cup water and leave them for 20 to 30 minutes. They swell to several times their size and grow a clear grey jelly around each seed. Drain off any loose water and keep them in the fridge.
2. Crush the mishri to a fine powder between two steel katoris, pulling out any cotton thread first.
3. Put the powdered mishri in the chilled milk and stir steadily for about a minute until you cannot feel any grain at the bottom of the jug. Cover and put the jug back in the fridge.
4. Boil 2 cups water in a small pan. Add the falooda sev and cook for about 2 minutes, or as the packet says, until it is soft and slippery but not falling apart.
5. Drain the sev into a colander and run cold water over it for 30 seconds to stop it cooking and wash off the starch. Drain very well and chill.
6. Chill two tall glasses in the freezer for 10 minutes.
7. Build each glass: 1 tbsp rose syrup at the bottom, then half the sabja seeds, then half the sev.
8. Add 1 more tbsp rose syrup down one side so it streaks, drop in a few ice cubes, and pour in the sweetened cold milk to about three quarters full. Do not stir.
9. Top with a scoop of ice cream, scatter the chopped pistachios and almonds over it, add a cherry if you like, put a straw and a long spoon in, and serve immediately.

Tips

• Everything cold, built last. Chill the milk, the sev, the sabja and the glasses. A falooda assembled early turns into one pink mixture with no layers.
• Do not oversoak the sabja. Twenty to thirty minutes is plenty. Left for hours the jelly gets slack and thins the milk.
• Rinse the sev. Cold water washes off the surface starch that would otherwise make the milk cloudy and gluey.
• Sweeten the milk, not the glass. Mishri stirred into the whole jug is even. Spooned into a built glass it sinks past the sev and sits at the bottom.
• Homemade rose syrup is better. Rose petals steeped overnight and boiled with mishri gives a syrup with real flower in it, and you control the sweetness.
• Kulfi falooda. Swap the ice cream for a sliced malai kulfi laid across the top. It melts more slowly and keeps the layers intact longer.