Alouda: the Mauritian Milk Drink with Basil Seeds (Recipe)

Alouda is Mauritius’s market-stall cooler: sweet, flavoured milk with swollen basil seeds (toukmaria) and strips of agar jelly floating in it, sometimes finished with a scoop of vanilla ice cream. At home, you soak the seeds, boil and grate the agar, then spoon both into cold milk sweetened with condensed milk.

What alouda is

Alouda is the Mauritian take on falooda. Falooda goes back to Iran, where a related dessert, faloodeh, is still popular. It reached India with Central Asian dynasties and took its present form under the Mughal Empire. Indian falooda is made with rose syrup, vermicelli and basil seeds. None of the sources mention vermicelli in Mauritian alouda.

You drink it through a straw and chew as you go, because the seeds and jelly thicken a drink that is already rich. People often have it as a snack, sometimes instead of a light meal.

Ingredients

The recipe below comes from the Mauritian blog Cuizine Maurice. It does not say how many glasses it makes.

• 1 litre of milk
• 1 can of sweetened condensed milk
• 2 tablespoons of toukmaria (basil seeds)
• 1/4 of a stick of agar
• 1 teaspoon of vanilla extract
• about 1/2 litre of water, for cooking the agar and soaking the seeds

Toukmaria are basil seeds, sold dry, which swell in water.

Step by step

1. Cook the agar

Bring about half a litre of water to the boil and cook the agar in it for five minutes. Pour it into a bowl and leave it to cool until it sets firm.

2. Prepare the milk

Warm the milk and condensed milk together in a saucepan. When it starts to simmer, stir in the vanilla and take it off the heat. Let it cool, then chill it. Alouda is best ice cold.

3. Soak the seeds

Put the toukmaria in a large bowl of water. They swell into small glossy black beads.

4. Grate the agar and assemble

Once the agar is firm enough, grate it. Pour cold milk into a glass, add a tablespoon of swollen seeds and a tablespoon of grated agar, and stir before drinking.

Flavours and variations

The basic recipe is vanilla. At the counter, alouda comes with different syrups: vanilla, almond or rose. The blog that listed these flavours says none of them is the only authentic one. The scoop of vanilla ice cream is a common addition, not a rule, and you can ask for it or leave it out, or ask for less sugar.

Where to drink alouda in Port Louis

The place most often named is the Central Market in Port Louis, where one reporter saw people drinking it before nine o’clock on a weekday morning. The best-known stall is Alouda Pillay, which a travel blog says has been selling alouda since the 1930s. The family has also bottled it since 2018, but the bottled version differs from the one served at the counter.

That blog recorded 35 Rs a glass, 60 Rs for half a litre and 110 Rs for a litre. These are prices noted on one visit, not an official tariff, so check on the spot.

What to have with it

In Port Louis, alouda often goes with something spicy. A vendor quoted by one reporter explains that dholl puri is very hot and the alouda soothes the stomach. Basil seeds are also said to be cooling, which the same reporter passes on without backing it up. With a savoury fritter, try the gâteaux piments; for something sweet, the napolitaines. More specialities are collected in our guide to Mauritian cuisine.

Storing it

None of the sources gives a keeping time. The simplest approach is to store the cold milk, the swollen seeds and the agar separately and put each glass together just before serving.

Sources and checks

• Cuizine Maurice: alouda recipe with quantities
• Roads & Kingdoms: alouda at the Central Market in Port Louis
• Jídlo na cestách: flavours, the Alouda Pillay stall and the prices noted
• Wikipedia: origin of falooda