Ice Served With Green Chutney And Spices Is Latest Bizarre Food Trend On The Block

It is often said that one does not require any fancy ingredients or equipment to make a dish. Now a video of a special Himachali dish preparation made with fresh ice, spices, and sugar is trending. The video was posted by a girl from Himachal Pradesh. She first took out a bag full of fresh ice and began crushing it in a large bowl-like utensil. She then added chutney made of coriander, imli, cumin, and other spices to the crushed ice. To add an extra punch of flavour, she sprinkled red chilli powder and sugar into the mix.

Once all of these ingredients are mixed well, the unique sweet and spicy snow-crushed dish is ready to eat. A video of this snack has over 75,000 likes.

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This snow dish preparation is similar to snow cones that are consumed in summer around the world. The snow cones or shaved ice are a sweet snack made by shaving ice and then dousing it with syrups. While some people prefer finely shaved ice that has a smooth texture, others like a more coarse grounded ice. In India a popular snow cone treat is called ice gola, it is served with sweet and savory water made of jamun, imli, and other spices.

Recently, in China, a strange street-side snack of ‘grilled ice cubes’ is becoming popular. The South China Morning Post describes the grilled ice cubes as “the ‘hottest’ street food in China." As its name suggests the dish is made by ‘grilling’ the ice cubes on a barbecue grill and adding seasonings and hot sauce over it. The cooks also add a dash of sesame oil over the ice cubes. The street vendors serve these ice cubes on paper plates and advise customers to eat them before they melt.

As per the South China Morning Post, this dish is popular in northeastern China. It appears that the ice snack originated as a way to help people cool off in hot weather and then gained popularity through social media.

Commenting on a video of the ‘grilled ice cubes’ a YouTube user wrote, “Just when I thought I’ve seen it all. China goes and proves me wrong yet again. Truly One of the countries of all time." Another person wrote, “The perfect dao of yin and yang. Hot and cold. You can feel the hotness in the coldness and vice versa. Interesting concept."