I must confess: I adore my crockpot (I know, how midwestern of me!). Until not too long ago, I'd stuck to traditional crockpot fare like chili and roasts. However, upon receiving a crockpot cookbook as a wedding shower gift, I've been branching out. It turns out you can make all kinds of things in a crockpot - who knew? And in my recent (misguided) attempt(s) to give up coffee, this chai recipe has come in quite handy.
Crockpot Chai Tea
Makes 8 to 10 servings
8 cups water
8 bags black tea
1/2 cup sugar (more if you like it extra sweet)
16 whole cloves
5 cinnamon sticks + a dash of ground cinnamon
1 tsp ground ginger
1 cup milk
Combine everything but the milk in a crockpot. Cover and cook on high for 2-3 hours. Strain mixture, discard solids. Stir in milk just before serving and refrigerate the extra tea (it'll be good for about a week).
For iced chai, I recommend making the tea a bit stronger. Use one or two extra tea bags and an extra dash of cinnamon and ginger. The perfect summer drink!
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2 comments:
Chai is kind of our Indian/Pakistani thing, and your recipe is right on point! Whenever we have a large dinner party, I always brew a batch on the stove. I'll put on a pot, dump in however many cups of milk (whole, 2%, whatever - for the longest time, Papa Hoomster was against 2% in his brewed chai because he didn't think it would work right because of the reduced fat and he was pleasantly surprised when he saw hwo wrong he was), same number of tea bags +1 extra (for the pot), and I always dump in some cinnamon and nutmeg. We don't use cloves (those we use more in cooking) but we ALWAYS use cardamom, same number as the tea bags we tossed in. Before you toss the cardamom pods in, though, nip the tip of the pod so that it's open, but not so the seeds are popping out.
And if you just stick a spoon in there (metal) it keeps the milk from bubbling over the top, which is a horrendous mess to clean up. :-P
Thanks Huma! My recipe called for cardamom but said it was optional so I've always been too lazy to buy it and throw it in, but now I'm definitely going to try it!
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