Ainsley Harriott's Caribbean Coconut Chai
From the book
Ainsley's Caribbean Kitchen: Delicious feelgood cooking from the sunshine islands by Ainsley Harriott
Introduction
Chai is a spiced milk tea from India and this is my Trinidadian twist with the flavours of coconut and tonka bean. If you can’t find tonka bean, you can use a couple of cloves and a pinch of nutmeg or half a vanilla pod in the infusion.
Ingredients
| 400ml | boiling water |
| 2-3 tbsp | loose black tea leaves |
| seeds from 10 crushed green cardamom pods (pods discarded) | |
| 1 | cinnamon stick, broken |
| 6 slices | of fresh root ginger |
| 1 x 400ml tin | coconut milk |
| 1 tbsp | caster sugar, or to taste |
| nutmeg, for grating (optional) |
Instructions
Combine the boiling water and tea leaves in a saucepan and infuse the tea to your preferred strength. Strain to remove the tea leaves and return the tea infusion to the pan. Add the cardamom seeds, cinnamon, ginger and coconut milk and give everything a good stir. Grate in half of the tonka bean and set the pan over a low-medium heat. Bring to a gentle simmer and cook for 5 minutes to allow the flavours to infuse, but do not boil. Add sugar to taste, stir until dissolved and remove from the heat.
To serve, strain or ladle into glasses or cups and garnish with a grating of tonka bean or nutmeg.
