Belada Hannina Panaka/Wood Apple Juice

It's summer and there is no better way to beat the heat and stay hydrated than juicing up & feeling happy and refreshed. You must have seen a number of roadside vendors selling ‘Bael Ka Sharbat’ during the peak summers. Do you know the reason behind it? Why Wood Apple juice is one of the most preferred beverage during summers in India? According to health experts, wood apple helps relieving constipation, indigestion, dysentery and also boosts immune system during summers. Here is a recipe for Belada hannina Panaka / Wood Apple Juice. Belada hannu in Kannada means wood apple or elephant apple in English & panaka or paanaka means juice. Belada hannina Panaka is very common during Ramanavami and Shivaratri, an excellent juice to beat the summer heat. It is little tangy ,sweet and very aromatic. To make the Panaka or Juice you need to take the pulp of the fruit by breaking its outer hard shell just like coconut (you need to use a hammer or a stone or any hard object to break it as we break coconut).The soft pulp inside is tangy and aromatic, we use this pulp to make juice, chutney etc. I have shown two ways to serve this juice, one is simple juice second is adding finely chopped muskmelon to the juice. Let's get started...

Ingredients

Jaggery – ½ Cup

Water – 3 to 4 Cups

Belada hannu / Wood Apple – 1

Pepper powder – ½ Tsp

Cardamom powder – ¼ Tsp

Muskmelon – 3 Tbsp finely chopped (optional)

Method

Step 1

In a bowl add jaggery and 1 cup water and keep it aside, so that jaggery dissolves completely in water.

Step 2

Take Belada hannu / Wood Apple use a hammer or a stone or any hard object to break it as we break coconut. Scoop the pulp after breaking its outer hard shell.

Step 3

In a bowl add the pulp and 1 Cup water and mash the pulp to extract juice from it. Now to this extract add the jaggery water and strain it.

Add 1 cup water to the strained pulp and squeeze the pulp to extract more juice and strain it once again.

Step 4

To the strained juice add pepper powder & cardamom powder, mix well.

Juice is ready to serve.

Or

(optional)

Add finely copped musk melon and add it to the juice and serve.

Notes

We do not grind the pulp in the mixer because Belada hannu / Wood Apple has lots of seeds and once they are ground in mixer they turn bitter. So its better to mash it with hand and extract juice.

This is a very basic juice and easy to make, but the difficult part is identifying if the fruit is still raw or ripe as the fruit looks almost same at both stages. so some ways by which we can identify if the fruit ready to use or not are:

- Check if the fruit is light in weight. The trick is lighter it is then riper it is.

- Smell the fruit if it has a light fragrance, means it’s ripe.

Adjust the consistency of water and jaggery based on the tanginess of the fruit.

You can even add ½ Tsp dry ginger powder to this juice to make it more delicious.