At the close of last year, Three Rivers Market Board said goodbye to three Directors who reached the end of their terms – Caitlin Seidler, Brian Williams, and Fred Stephens.

We thank each of them for the time they dedicated to serving Three Rivers Market.

The Board is presently composed of the following people: Kimberly Lomonaco (Chair), Mary French (Vice-Chair) and Jacqueline Kittrell (Secretary/Treasurer).

The Cooperative Pantry

by Jacqueline Kittrell

To inspire and encourage your co-op shopping, here’s a recipe where every ingredient is available at Three Rivers Market! I invite other members to contribute! For this recipe, I really enjoy going to the co-op’s bulk spices shelves and measuring the spices out of the glass jars into the little bags, getting just enough for what I need, breathing in the fragrance as I go, which begin in the store and continue in my kitchen!

Masala Chai tea

Chai means “tea” in Hindi. I grew up drinking milk tea, usually made with Lipton or Red Roses black tea, the same tea bags my mom used to make sweet iced tea. I learned to “steep” the tea, whether in a tea bag or loose tea in a porcelain tea ball. When I moved to Toronto to go to art school, my new neighbor taught me how to make Indian tea using black Assam tea leaves boiled with milk. She instructed me to always let it come to a full rolling boil twice because that’s what made it Indian tea. Chai tea is boiled, not steeped.

My next lesson in tea-brewing was making Masala Chai tea, or spiced Indian tea. I committed that recipe to memory and used it often. When I joined the co-op and was able to pick and choose my spices easily, I began experimenting with the recipe. Here’s my latest version. Simpler ones exist. It’s made mostly from dried spices, water and milk, with some important fresh ingredients. You can easily adjust for volume and flavor and each component is yours to customize. Nostalgic and fragrant thoughts swirl around your kitchen or campfire! Old adage: Tea is an emotion, not just a drink.

Note: If you prefer, you can combine the dry fixings ahead but you can develop a ritual and make it from scratch each time you serve it. I will put in parentheses some alternative ingredients.

For two cups of tea:

Gather the equipment:

 Medium cooking pot to boil the ingredients

 Mortar and pestle or something to mash up the dry ingredients and ginger

 Measuring implements if needed

 Pitcher to serve hot tea into cups

Gather the following Ingredients:

Spices:

 2 pieces of cinnamon stick (If possible, get the softer bark/stick so it will crush.)

 5 Black Peppercorns

 5 green Cardamom pods

 1-2 pieces of Star Anise

 4 whole Cloves

 pinch of fennel seeds

 1/2 Teaspoon (approximately) of nutmeg freshly grated from the nut

Fresh:

 15 grams or medium knob of fresh ginger, grated (You could substitute ginger powder.)

Tea:

 3 Tablespoons black tea, ideally loose Assam, ideally organic. (You can also use 3 tea bags ripped open or kept in the teabag if you prefer. I have used loose Earl Grey too since I always have it in the pantry—it has assam tea in it, along with Darjeeling.) I haven’t tried to make chai with green tea, but please let me know if you do and how you like it.

Sweetener:

 2 Tablespoons of sugar or honey (to taste)

(Note: A kind of sugar called jaggery is the traditional sweetener in India. It is brown and scraped off a block. Its western cousin is unrefined organic brown cane sugar which is made from molasses. You can certainly use honey to taste or just plain white sugar. I would advise not using stevia. (Some folks like unsweetened chai and that’s OK too.)

Liquid:

1 cup water (Ideal to use fresh cold water).

2 cups milk Ideal to use whole milk. It can be cow milk or unsweetened oat, soy or coconut milk. You could experiment with your favorite milk! My son prefers cashew milk or barista oat milk which is creamier than regular oat milk.

Instructions:

1. Add all dry ingredients together and crush with mortar and pestle (If you had to get the hard cinnamon stick, just throw it in and don’t worry about crushing it.) Put into a cooking pot.

2. Cut and mash up the fresh ginger and add it in with the dry crushed spices in the cooking pot.

3. Add the black tea leaves/bags

4. Add water

5. Adding the sweetener: You can simply pour (honey) or spoon the sugar in to the cooking pot or you can lightly melt/caramelize the sugar in the pot and then put in the water, spices, tea, and ginger.

6. Bring to a boil and simmer all for about 3 minutes. The liquid should slightly reduce. This is where the nostalgic fragrance comes in!

7. In the same cooking pot, add the milk and bring back to a rolling boil, and simmer/boil for about three minutes. This will reduce the liquid slightly and concentrate it.

8. Turn down the heat. Taste and add more of whatever you’d prefer, if necessary.

To serve: Pour from the cooking pot into a pitcher through a fine sieve. From the pitcher, pour into cups to sip.

Let it cool a little bit or pour carefully. It’ll be very hot. You can reserve the strained-out tea and spices to make seconds. You can also increase the volume of all ingredients to make 4 or 6 cups.

Many recipes maintain a 50-50 ratio of milk and water rather than 1:2. Please experiment.