Shrikhand with Greek Yogurt

My dad has been known to suggest yogurt as the cure of everything from head-aches to leg sprain and everything in between. Given that he had worked his entire life in Dairy Development Authority in Kolkata, he is a “bit” biased. Today is his birthday. He is thousands of miles away and I cannot really make him anything for today, but still in his honor todays recipe is yoghurt based.

This desert is from Western India and I learned it from my Maharashtrian friend Sonali. It is made with strained yogurt and flavored with saffron and cardamom. Traditionally the yogurt is strained overnight to drain out the excess whey which makes this process little lengthy. I used fat free Greek yogurt because its already thickened.

Ingredient

• 5 cups of Greek yogurt or 7cups of plain yogurt
• 3 cups sugar (Quantity varies depending how sweet you want)
• A handful of almond and pistachio sliced
• 1 tsp. freshly ground cardamom powder
• 2 tbsp. warm milk
• 1 tsp. saffron strands

Procedure

In a bowl heat 2 tbsp. milk for 10 seconds. Add the saffron strands to it and set aside.

In a mixing bowl take the yogurt and add sugar, cardamom powder and saffron infused milk to it. Blend everything well with a hand or electric blender. It will make your desert super creamy.

Place this mixture in the refrigerator for 3- 4 hours to fuse the flavors together.

Serve in small glasses and garnish with chopped almonds and pistachios.

Note: If you are using plain yogurt follow these steps

Place a strainer lined with cheese cloth on a big bowl. Now pour yogurt in the strainer and keep it overnight in the refrigerator to drain out the whey.

It is important to keep the yogurt in the cool place so that it doesn’t turn sour.

Use the strained yogurt or shrikhand and you can either discard the whey or can use it for making buttermilk, kaadi or chapatti dough.