Shrikhand
A dessert from Maharashtra and Gujarat, eaten at festivals and weddings, sometimes with fried puri. It has two main ingredients — yogurt and sugar — so everything rests on technique. The yogurt must drain overnight until it loses half its weight and turns as thick as cream cheese. Then it is pushed through a sieve with the sugar, because beaten with a spoon it stays grainy.
Your own work in that: 10 min.
- Straining the yogurt 720 min
- Saffron and cardamom 15 min
- Sieving with sugar 10 min
- Chilling 30 min
Step by step
0 / 8 doneStrain the yogurt overnight
Tip the yogurt into muslin, tie it and hang it over a bowl in the fridge for 12 hours. A kilo leaves about 450 g of thick mass. Not optional — insufficiently strained yogurt gives a dessert as thin as a smoothie.
Ingredients: 1000 g plain yogurt · 120 g icing sugar
Twelve hours in muslin — a kilo becomes half.Squeeze out the last whey
In the morning squeeze the bundle with your hands until it stops dripping. The mass should have the texture of firm cream cheese and hold its shape on a spoon. Keep the whey — it is good in bread dough.
Ingredients: 1000 g plain yogurt · 120 g icing sugar
Steep the saffron in warm milk
Crumble the saffron threads between your fingers and cover with two tablespoons of warm milk for 15 minutes. Saffron gives up its colour and aroma best in warm liquid — tipped straight into cold yogurt it leaves isolated orange streaks.
Ingredients: 1 pinch saffron · 2 tbsp milk · 6 pcs cardamom · 1 pinch nutmeg
A quarter hour in warm milk — only then does it colour.Grind the cardamom fresh
Shell the cardamom pods and grind the seeds in a mortar with a teaspoon of the icing sugar. The sugar acts as an abrasive and picks up the oils that would otherwise cling to the mortar. Ready-ground cardamom is far less aromatic.
Ingredients: 1 pinch saffron · 2 tbsp milk · 6 pcs cardamom · 1 pinch nutmeg
Push the yogurt through a sieve with sugar
Mix the strained yogurt with the icing sugar and push it through a fine sieve with a spoon. It takes a few minutes but gives a silkiness no stirring can — the mark of good shrikhand.
Ingredients: 1000 g plain yogurt · 120 g icing sugar
Through a sieve — the only way it turns silky.Stir in saffron, cardamom and nutmeg
Stir in the saffron milk, cardamom and a pinch of nutmeg. Do not whisk — stir with a spoon until the colour is an even pale gold. Whisking aerates the mass and thins it.
Ingredients: 1 pinch saffron · 2 tbsp milk · 6 pcs cardamom · 1 pinch nutmeg
Chill half an hour
Spoon into bowls and chill 30 minutes. The spices need time to spread through the yogurt fat. Served at once it tastes mainly of sweet yogurt; only after chilling does the saffron come through.
Ingredients: 1000 g plain yogurt · 120 g icing sugar
Scatter pistachios before serving
Before serving scatter with slivered pistachios, almonds and a few saffron threads. In Maharashtra it comes with hot, puffed puri — the contrast of cold cream and hot bread is the whole pleasure.
Ingredients: 30 g pistachios · 20 g almonds
Before you start
Yogurt without thickeners
Yogurts with gelatine, starch or pectin do not strain properly — they hold their water and stay jelly-like. Check the label: milk and cultures only. Thick Greek yogurt strains noticeably faster — check the texture after a few hours.
The mango version
Amrakhand is shrikhand with thick mango purée, popular in mango season. Add 150 g purée to each 450 g of strained yogurt and cut the sugar by a third — the mango brings its own sweetness.
Three days in the fridge
Shrikhand keeps three days in the fridge and is more aromatic on the second. Always add the pistachios just before serving, as they soften and lose colour in the moisture.
