Aam Panna

Should the mango be roasted or boiled?

Roasting is better and takes less time. Held over a flame the skin chars and the sugars inside caramelise slightly, which gives the smoky depth that separates a good panna from a merely sour one. Boiling is easier to do in quantity and gives a cleaner, sharper drink, but it also leaches some of the flavour into the cooking water, so keep that water and use it in the concentrate. Pressure cooking works and is the fastest of the three, though it produces the flattest result of them all.

Which mangoes should be used?

Firm, properly unripe green ones with white flesh and a stone that has not yet hardened fully. Totapuri and the small local varieties sold by the kilo in April are ideal, and the fibre that makes Totapuri poor for eating is no obstacle here because everything is blended and strained. A mango that has begun to turn, with any yellow blush inside, gives a sweet flabby panna with none of the bite. Sourness is the entire point of the drink, so err towards fruit that is almost inedibly sharp.

Why is it made as a concentrate?

Because raw mango has a short season and this is how households carry it through the summer. A thick concentrate keeps for three to four weeks refrigerated in a clean jar, and frozen in an ice tray it lasts the whole season, which means a glass takes thirty seconds rather than an afternoon. Keeping it concentrated also lets each person dilute to their own taste, which matters more than it sounds, since preferences on the salt and sour balance vary a great deal.

What does the black salt do?

Two things. It supplies the sulphurous, faintly eggy savoury note that ordinary salt cannot, which is the flavour people actually identify as panna, and it contributes sodium to a drink that is usually being drunk after sweating. That is the honest version of the folk claim attached to this drink: it is salty water with fruit in it, which is a pleasant thing to drink in the heat, and nothing beyond that should be claimed for it. The healthy eating essentials course takes the same approach to traditional foods generally, keeping what is true and dropping what is not.

How sweet should it be?

Less sweet than most commercial versions, which are built to be diluted heavily and lean hard on sugar. The concentrate should taste sour first, salty second and sweet last. Jaggery is traditional and brings a slight molasses depth that white sugar does not, though it also makes the drink muddy brown rather than green, which is why shop versions use sugar and colour. If you want the green without the colouring, blend in extra mint and accept that it fades within a day.

What else is drunk in the same season?

Panna sits in a family of sour, salty Indian coolers built on the same logic, and they are worth knowing as a set. Kokum sherbet on the west coast does the same job with a different fruit acid and is deep pink rather than green. Masala chaas uses curd instead of fruit and adds protein along with the salt. All three are far better propositions than a bottled soft drink, mainly because the sweetness is dialled down and something else is doing the work.

How long does it keep?

Three to four weeks in the fridge if the jar is clean and dry and you use a dry spoon each time, and several months frozen. Watch for fermentation: a concentrate that fizzes faintly or smells yeasty has started to work and should be thrown away, which usually means moisture or a wet spoon got in. Freezing it in ice cube trays and bagging the cubes is the most practical method, because one cube in a glass of water is close to one serving.