Shrikhand Creme Fraiche

The memories of of my parents making shrikhand for parties is vivid. They would line our dining table with layers of newspaper followed by layers of freshly washed cotton cloth, a thick layer of plain yogurt and then more cloth followed by paper. This set up would be used to strain the yogurt of excess water until it was rich, thick and tart. Afterwards, they would transfer the yogurt to a large metal bowl and they would add freshly ground cardamom, saffron and lots of sugar. My parents would add pistachios and fruits and this would be dessert, most likely alongside a meal of freshly fried poori and bataka nu shaak. The arrival of commercial greek yogurt vastly reduces the time, effort and space required but the memory still remains.

Developing a Well-Balanced Indian-American Dessert

While I like Indian desserts as an occasional treat, I often find them one-note. So many of them are predominantly dairy and lots of sugar. While trying to brainstorm an Indian inspired dessert that might feel a little different, it struck me that normally shrikhand (or other desserts) would be served as part of a Gujarati thali where there would be a variety of spicy and sour flavors. Could I pair an Indian dessert with a complementary flavor.

With a partial tub of creme fraiche in our fridge that I wanted to use up, I set out to see if I could make a shrikhand creme fraiche and whether it would taste good with a strawberry rhubarb crostata. The idea was to find a way to integrate Gujarati flavors in a more balanced dish.

The pairing of shrikhand creme fraiche and strawberry rhubarb crostata completely surpassed my expectations. It was absolutely perfect to intersperse bites of the sweet-sour juicy crostata with the saffron and cardamom flavored creme fraiche which just melts in your mouth. I like to think that my shrikhand creme fraiche is a modern French-Californian-Gujarati-American take on the traditional Gujarati dessert.

While some traditional shrikhands (like some greek yogurts) can have the tendency to stick your mouth shut, this one goes down so smooth. Part of the reason is that creme fraiche is a minimum 30% fat (a little less than heavy cream which is a minimum 36% fat) so it’s best to enjoy it as an accompaniment rather than the main dish. A little goes a long way.

Ways to Use Shrikhand Creme Fraiche

Some ways you can use shrikhand creme fraiche include:

• Pairing with a fruit dessert such as a crostata, pie, cobbler, crisp or even a bowl of fruit compote
• As an accompaniment to a bowl of fresh (or cooked) fruit
• Swirled into a bowl of steel cut oats
• Atop some pancakes
• A chilled dollop next to warm gulab jamun
• On top of scones as part of high chai.

Waste Less, Make More Tasty Food

Here are some of the ways I use up ingredients that are not part of my essential pantry or where it is not obvious what you might be able to do with the remaining portion of an ingredient after making this recipe.

1. Saffron
   • I really like the saffron tagliatelle from Yotam Ottolenghi’s Plenty. That recipe is not available on his website but another saffron pasta (which I have not yet tried) is: Saffron pasta with chipotle shallots and pickled chillies
2. Creme Fraiche
   • Homemade Ranch Dressing

Shrikhand Creme Fraiche

Recipe by Preeyanka

Servings

4

servings

Prep time

5

minutes

Cooking timeminutes

Ingredients

• 2/3 cup creme fraiche

• Seeds of 1-2 pods green cardamom, ground with a mortar/pestle

• A small pinch of saffron ground with a small pinch of sugar in a mortar and pestle

• 1 Tbs sugar (add more if you’d like)

• 1 tsp chopped pistachios (the greener the better)

Directions

• Mix the creme fraiche, ground seeds from one cardamom pod, saffron and sugar in a small bowl. Taste and add more cardamom and sugar if you’d like.
• Chill in the fridge for at least an hour – the saffron will continue to infuse over time, especially if you did not grind it finely.
• Remove from fridge and sprinkle with chopped pistachios. Serve as per your liking.

Notes

• If you don’t have a mortar pestle, find something in the kitchen that is heavy, blunt and durable and use it to crush the grind the cardamom and saffron on a wooden cutting board. My mortar/pestle broke and I haven’t get bought a new one so I used the bottom of our tea strainer.