Avantika's Kitchen Delights: Mango Shrikhand

Mango Shrikhand is a curd / yogurt based sweet dish, which is made during the Mango season. It tastes good with pooris. By adding mango puree to the hung curd along with rest of the ingredients, we make Mango Shrikhand.

We always use fresh curd to prepare shrikhand, preferably home made curd. Homemade curd / yogurt is used to prepare hung curd / hung yogurt. No artificial colours or flavourings have been used to prepare this mango Shrikhand. I flavoured the Shrikhand with some cardamom powder and saffron. Depending on the sweetness of the mango, we add sugar to this Shrikhand.

I first made this hung curd to make Mango Shrikhand.

Here are the step by step pictures on how to make hung curd.

(1) Keep the four things ready -> A container, a colander or filter, curd (called Dahi in Hindi), and Muslin or Cheese cloth.

(2) Place a colander or filter over the container to collect the whey.

(3) Spread the muslin or cheese cloth over the colander or filter.

(4) Put curd on the centre of the cloth as shown in the image.

(5) Make a knot and squeeze the curd inside the cloth so that the whey oozes out of the cloth and falls in the container. We do till maximum of the whey is squeezed out.

Then place the tied curd in the strainer and allow the whey to drip into the container.

Leave it for about 30 minutes.

(6) After 30 to 45 minutes, again squeeze out the extra whey into the container.

(7) Put the cloth on the colander and cover it. Keep it in the refrigerator for 4 - 8 hours.

After four hours, the hung curd is ready.

This hung curd is used for making Mango Shrikhand.

Following ingredients are used to prepare the Mango Shrikhand.

INGREDIENTS :

(1) 500 gms of hung curd prepared from homemade curd or dahi or one brought from store.

(2) 1 Mango, chopped and pureed.

(3) Powdered sugar, (Put amount as per sweetness required)

(4) Saffron milk

(5) Cardamom powder (of green cardamom called Hari elaichi or choti elaichi in Hindi)

(6) Crushed dry nuts like cashews, almonds and pistachios.

PREPARATION :

(1) Prepare hung curd using the instructions given about how to prepare hung curd and keep aside.

(2) Peel a mango, discard the skin and seeds of it and chop the pulp. Put the chopped mangoes in the blending jar and blend them to form a smooth puree. Keep the Mango puree aside.

Mango

Peel the skin of the mango

After peeling off the skin of the mango

Chop the pulp of the mango into bite sized pieces. Note that the seed kept aside is to be discarded.

Chopped mango pieces

Put the mango pieces into a blending jar and blend to form a smooth puree

Mango Puree

(3) Using a mortar and pestle, crush the dry fruits like Almonds, Pistachios and Cashews and keep them aside in separate bowls each.

Crushed Almonds

Crushed Pistachios

Crushed Cashews

(4) You can form powdered sugar by grinding the sugar granules in a mixer grinder or buy readymade powdered sugar.

Powdered Sugar

(5) Put 2 pinch of saffron strands in 20 ml of hot milk for 15 minutes. This will cause the colour of the saffron to get incorporated well in the milk to form saffron milk. Keep aside.