Smooth and creamy shrikhand made from luscious yogurt with crushed nuts, a hint of cardamom for flavor and saffron for that rich golden hue with as much or as little sugar as you want to add, makes for a delicious instant dessert.
Homemade yogurt (3 cups)
Nuts (handful of nuts like peeled almonds, pistachios, cashews etc.)
Cardamom (2-3 pods)
Saffron (a few strands)
Water (1 tbsp)
Rock sugar/mishri (to taste)
Ingredients
Preparation
Strain homemade yogurt through a muslin cloth and place a weight on top overnight or for a few hours.
Collect the whey and use for kneading bread, or adding in lieu of water in gravies etc.
Gently mix the thick yogurt collected in the cloth with a whisk for a few minutes to make it homogenous and slightly airy.
Warm water slightly and soak saffron strands in them for 10-15 minutes.
Crush nuts using a mortar and pestle.
Discard peels of cardamom pods and powder the seeds finely.
Blend rock sugar to a fine powder.
Mix yogurt, cardamom powder, nuts, sugar and saffron-infused water thoroughly. Your yummy shrikhand is ready to serve!
Tastes (Rasa)
Sweet (yogurt, sugar), sour (yogurt), salty (none), bitter (none), pungent (cardamom), astringent (saffron).
Doshic Influence
Ayurveda doesn't recommend regular consumption of yogurt since it is considered both kapha and pitta aggravating. Yogurt is abhishyandi (has a tendency to block body channels) and vidahi (heating). It is recommended that yogurt be consumed in the form of buttermilk to ease its effects on the digestion by diluting it with water and other spices. Fresh homemade yogurt is considered suitable for pittas as well as vatas. This is because fresh homemade yogurt is not too sour if made properly. As it ages, it becomes sour and ferments making it unsuitable for pittas. Rock sugar is a great addition to yogurt since it mitigates some of the heating qualities of yogurt (other recommended accompaniments to yogurt are amla, mung soup, honey, ghee - please don't add these to the shrikhand recipe). Nuts also have kapha aggravating qualities, in excess. To balance out all the heaviness and sweetness in the recipe, we add spices like cardamom and saffron. Both are digestive. Saffron is tridoshic, and is great for blood purification, reduces inflammation, and is great for the skin and eyes. Cardamom is good for digestion and helps to create that mild pungency needed to offset the heaviness and stickiness of yogurt.
Effects on the Mind (Gunas)
Using store-bought yogurt makes the recipe instant and simplifies the process of making shrikhand, but reduces sattva and increases tamas due to the heavy qualities of store-bought yogurts. Using fresh, homemade yogurt is best to keep the sattvic nature of the dish. Addition of sattvic spices like cardamom and saffron definitely aid in the digestion of the shrikhand, add flavor and aroma and add to the sattva quotient.