Kulukki Sarbath is one of the popular sarbath or juice from God’s own country, Kerala, especially Cochin. Kulukki is a Malayalam word which means shaken, and sarbath, as we all know, means juice. It’s a sweet and spice shaken limeade or lemonade with basil seeds and pineapple. Here is the easy to prepare Cochin fame, Kulukki sarbath.
I know it’s pouring in Bay Area and why am I posting a summer drink now? If BM theme is one reason, the other reason is, it’s summer in Southern Hemisphere. :-) Before getting into the BM theme, I wanted to share the foodie in me. Be it a movie or a place or book, the first thing that entices me is the food. One of my favorite movies is the Malayalam film Premam. I am not going to talk about the movie but about the sarbath that George and his friends drink in the phone booth shop. It’s a lemon soda with khus khus Khus (basil seeds). For some reason, that sarbath intrigued me, and I was searching for it online. That’s when I stumbled upon this kulukki sarbath. We tried it right away and thought of posting it during summer. But what made me post now? – The BM Theme. 
This week’s BM theme is Ingredient Exchange. So basically we bloggers paired up and exchanged three ingredients, and we need to prepare a recipe with that ingredient. Interesting huh? I shared the ingredients with Smruti of Herbivore Cucina and guess what, I met her too. It was a brief meeting, but still, it was super fun, and we had an excellent time. Hope to meet her soon. By now you might have guessed it; one among the three ingredients that Smruti gave was basil seeds. Without a second thought, I prepared this sarbath again; here I am sharing it with you all.
Now that the background story is over let’s come to the main part – the recipe. Kulukki Sarbath is a sweet and spicy sarbath. It gets the spiciness from green chilies. All we need to do is prepare a lemonade or limeade and add green chili, basil seeds, pineapple chunks, sugar and shake nicely along with ice cubes. Boom, the sarbath is done. I went with limeade and last Christmas I received a cocktail mason jar as a gift from one of our friend and made full use of it for this recipe. Without any further ado, here is the recipe.
Like food photography, I am taking my own sweet time to learn videography. I tried shooting close up this time but didn’t come as I expected. But I went ahead and edited, just to improve the editing skills, and I am presenting the same. I know I have to re-shoot this again. I will do better justice soon. :-) Here is a short video of preparing the sarbath.
Ingredients:
- Medium Sized Lime – 1
- Water – 2 cups + ¼ cup
- Sugar – 3 tbsps.
- Ice cubes or crushed ice – ½ cup
- Green chili – 1
- Pineapple – 1 ring finely chopped. Or approx. ⅓ cup of chopped pineapple
- Chopped ginger – 1 tsp
- Basil Seeds / Sabja Seeds – 1 tsp (You can read about its health benefits in watermelon Popsicle post)
Prep Work:
- Chop the pineapple, green chili and ginger into small pieces.
- Soak the sabja seeds in ¼ cup of water for at least 15 to 20 minutes.
- You can squeeze the juice from 1 lime beforehand or squeeze the juice fresh before shaking the sarbath.
Steps:
- Add the chopped ingredients (pineapple, green chili, ginger) and the crushed ice to a cocktail mason jar or a water bottle or any bottle or vessel with a lid so that you can shake the sarbath without spilling.
- Add the sugar and squeeze the lime juice.
- Finally, add the soaked basil seeds and 2 cups of water. Close the lid and shake vigorously until the sugar is dissolved.
That’s it. Kulukki Sarbath is ready. Serve chilled right away. :-)
Notes:
- Adjust the sugar as per your preference and also depending upon the sourness of the lime.
- Instead of lime, lemon can be used too.
- If your limes are small, you can use up to 2. Mine was pretty big and when squeezed I got approximately ¼ cup of lime juice.
- A pinch of salt can be added. I did not add in mine.
- If you are using canned pineapple, adjust the sugar accordingly as canned pineapple might have sugar in them already.
Sending this to the BM 72. Check out the Blogging Marathon page for the other Blogging Marathoners doing this BM
📖 Recipe
Kulukki Sarbath | Sweet and Spicy Shaken Limeade
Ingredients
- 1 Medium Sized Lime
- 2.25 cups Water
- 3 tbsp Sugar
- ½ cup Ice cubes or crushed ice
- 1 Green chili
- ⅓ cup Pineapple 1 pineapple ring finely chopped
- 1 tsp Chopped ginger
- 1 tsp Basil Seeds Sabja Seeds - You can read about its health benefits in watermelon Popsicle post
Instructions
Prep Work
- Chop the pineapple, green chili and ginger into small pieces.
- Soak the sabja seeds in ¼ cup of water for at least 15 to 20 minutes.
- You can squeeze the juice from 1 lime beforehand or squeeze the juice fresh before shaking the sarbath.
Steps
- Add the chopped ingredients (pineapple, green chili, ginger) and the crushed ice to a cocktail mason jar or a water bottle or any bottle or vessel with a lid so that you can shake the sarbath without spilling.
- Add the sugar and squeeze the lime juice.
- Finally, add the soaked basil seeds and 2 cups of water. Close the lid and shake vigorously until the sugar is dissolved.
- That's it. Kulukki Sarbath is ready. Serve chilled right away. :-)
Video
Notes
Instead of lime, lemon can be used too.
If your limes are small, you can use up to 2. Mine was pretty big, and when squeezed I got approximately ¼ cup of lime juice.
A pinch of salt can be added. I did not add in mine.
If you are using canned pineapple, adjust the sugar accordingly as canned pineapple might have sugar in them already. Adapted from KurryLeaves
Nutrition
I am not a nutritionist. The nutritional information is provided as a courtesy and is an estimate only. It varies depending upon the product types or brands.
That looks amazing, i bought some basil seeds yday, planning to try some summer drinks, bookmarking this!!!
Thanks Priya.. Please do let me know how you liked it.
What a beautiful drink this and loved your pictures and video. So glad you have started your video attempts.
:-) Thanks Sandhya.
What an awesome dish, very apt to the name and the drink..the video is lovely, maybe you can move a little further from camera..still very nicely done.
Oh yeah.. tried with tripod for first time and kept it too close.:-) Thanks much Valli
Perfect thirst quencher.
oh yes. :-) Thanks
That is a very interesting limeade with basil seeds, chili, pineapple chunks. Perfect summer thirst quencher.
Oh yes absolutely. Thanks Pavani.
Wow! its amazingly beautiful n refreshing.
Thanks Archana.
The drink looks very refreshing , good choice to use basil seeds in this sharbet.
Thanks Vaishali.
Kulukki Sarbath looks fabulous and very refreshing, well done with basil seeds.
Thanks :-)
Nice refreshing drink Vidhya! love to have it any time.
Thanks Sarita. :-)
so refreshing I can have the whole jug
Thanks Veena. :-)
I LOVED this drink. You made a wonderful recipe using basil seeds. Looking forward to the other two :)
:-) Thanks Smruti.
This is such a nice refreshing drink Vidya. Summer started here and I love to have this now. And the video is very nice…
Thanks a lot Gayathri.
Refreshing sarbath vidhya…Will try once this cold weather goes?
:-) Thanks Lathiya.
this would be perfect on a hot summer day
Yup. Thanks :-)
Such a refreshing drink!! Perfect!
Thanks Sharmila.