Cool and creamy shrikhand made from luscious Greek yogurt with crushed nuts, a hint 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.
Ingredients:
- Greek yogurt (1 medium sized container of Fage plain yogurt)
- Nuts (handful of nuts like peeled almonds, pistachios, cashews etc.)
- Cardamom (2-3 pods)
- Saffron (a few strands)
- Milk (1 tbsp)
- Organic sugar (to taste)
Method:
- Warm milk 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.
- Mix yogurt, cardamom powder, nuts, sugar and saffron-infused milk thoroughly. Your yummy shrikhand is ready to serve!
Tips:
- Traditionally, shrikhand is made by hanging yogurt in a muslin cloth for several hours, discarding the whey liquid and using only the thick portions of the yogurt. You can definitely make it this way as well.
- Shrikhand makes for a great accompaniment for puris. I have served puris here with chana masala, aamras and shrikhand.
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. 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 sour. As it ages, it becomes sour and ferments making it unsuitable for pittas. Greek yogurt, for all practical purposes is like regular store-bought yogurt, just thicker and not as sour. It can therefore be considered kapha aggravating and slightly pitta aggravating. 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, pacifies pitta and is great for blood purification, reduces inflammation, and is great for the skin and eyes. Cardamom is good for digestion and is tridoshic.
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. 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.