Mom's Recipies

Shrikhand, the delightful Indian dessert is prepared using strained yogurt and sugar with the addition of saffron and cardamom flavorings. It is traditionally served with poori in Maharashtra and Gujarat but itself is also a rich dessert.This dessert is simple to make tastes very delicious.This is my favorite one.


Ingredients:

    * 4 cups of yogurt
    * 1 cup of sugar (increase based on the sourness of yogurt)
    * 1/2 tsp of saffron strands /Kesar
    * 1 tbsp warm milk
    * ¼ tsp crushed cardamom /Elaichi
    * 1 tbsp sliced pistachios



    Method:

   1). Take a muslin or cheese cloth and pour the yogurt over muslin cloth to drain and tie into a knot.
   2). Hang it so that all the water falls away from the yogurt. Leave it like this for overnight or for about 12hrs. By the time, the water from the yogurt would have drained and you would be left with a thick yogurt (about a cup). The thick yogurt or dry yogurt is called hung yogurt or "chakka" in marathi.
   3). Soak the saffron in warm milk. Mix the saffron strands in the milk and rub with your fingers to extract the orangish/yellow colour and saffron flavour. The more you rub, the more colour you will get.
  4). Add sugar to yogurt and beat well till sugar dissolves. You may use a mixer if needed. Then add cardamom powder, and saffron milk to the yogurt and mix well.
  5). Mix in most of the chopped pistachios to the yogurt mix.
  6). Chill the shrikhand before serving.
  7). Garnish with remaining pistachios and crushed saffron before serving.
  8). Traditionally shrikhand is served with puri (fried flat bread) but it can be also be served with chapatis and eaten as a itself as dessert also.

There, a delicious and healthy dessert is ready to please you and your guests!


There are innumerable varieties and flavors of shrikhand: elachi, pista, badam, kesar, mango , berries etc. The one with mango pulp is called amrakhand. The procedure remains more or less the same regardless of the flavor.