Nimbu Pani

Nimbu Pani: Step by Step

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1. Toast the cumin seeds in a dry pan over medium heat for 60 to 90 seconds, until they darken a shade and smell nutty. Grind to a coarse powder.

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2. Put the sugar, both salts, the ground cumin and the pepper in a jug with 100 ml of the water and stir until everything has dissolved.

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3. Bruise the mint leaves between your palms and drop them in.

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4. Add the lime juice and the remaining water, and stir well.

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5. Taste and adjust: it should be sharply sour first, then salty, then only faintly sweet. Add more lime or salt rather than more sugar.

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6. Chill 20 minutes, then serve over plenty of ice with lime slices and fresh mint.

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Related guide: Prep, cook and total time.

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Keep an Eye on These

1. Kala namak is the recipe. Ordinary salt makes it taste like salted lemonade; black salt makes it taste like nimbu pani.
2. Toast and grind the cumin fresh. Pre-ground has nothing left.
3. Soda water instead of still turns it into shikanji, which is the version sold at every station in India.

Ingredient Swaps

• Lemon is the everyday swap for lime in this kind of dish — the acidity plays the same role even though the flavour is not identical.

A Little Background

The salt is doing physiological work, not just seasoning. In real heat you lose sodium as well as water, and a drink with salt in it is absorbed faster and rehydrates better than plain sweet lemonade — the same principle as an oral rehydration solution. Kala namak, black salt, brings a sulphurous note that reads as savoury rather than salty, and toasting the cumin before grinding releases the aromatic oils that survive in cold liquid.

To Go With It

A very hot day · Samosas · Anything fried

Leftovers

Refrigerated for 2 days. Add the ice and soda at the last minute.

Questions People Ask

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Per serving, an approximate calculation from the ingredient list. Treat it as a rough guide: where a line offers a choice of foods, only one of them is counted; part of the energy comes from foods, or weights per item, with no recorded source. How the figures are worked out.

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