Mango Shirkhand / Mango Flavoured yogurt - 400 th post - Step by step

  I am very happy to post my 400 th post, today. I started this blog to kill my time.  It has become one of my favourite hobbies now . Thank you every one, for your endless support. Though blogging is not so easy, we bloggers will never ever give up this passion. Every picture in the blog has its own stories or memories, which can be felt, when we see the picture after some time. We have experimented so many recipes again and agian, till we get the satisfaction to post it in the blog. With toddlers running around, every blogger faces the challenge of cooking,clicking and editing. I personally feel that ,blogging is about documenting the history and culture of our country. There are so many authentic recipes,which were forgotten now. So blogging is not just taking pictures, its a very good way to spread the culture and food of our country. 

    Today's recipe is very simple, but very nutritious . I have used hung curd to prepare shirkhand. But we can use greek yogurt too. It works fine. I got around 6 mangoes from "costco". They were not that sweet, so tried some recipes with it. Rohith, enjoyed the shirkhand . Shirkhand is so easy and simple, but what matters is its texture. The texture should be smooth and silky.You may be wondering, why I am posting simple recipe for my "400 th" post . According to me ,every recipe is special. Even a simple recipe should be presented and executed very well. Hence this recipe for my milestone. Check my other milestones here.

             50 th post  - Mutton Biriyani

100 th post  - Jangiri

                     150 th post   - Coconut Macroons

       200 th post    - Mysore Pa

         250 th post    - Doodh Peda

              300 th post - Chocolate Mousse

    350 th post - Shahi Tukda

Setting time : 3 to 4 hours
Preparation time : 5 minutes
Chilling time : 30 minutes
Serving : 1

Ingredients:
1.Yogurt - 1 cup
2.Mango - 1/2 cup or as needed
3.Powdered sugar - 3 tbsp
4.Cardamom powder - a pinch

Method:
* Take yogurt in a clean white cloth and hang it on a tap. Keep a bowl , under the bundle, as the whey will be dripping from the bundle. Keep the yogurt in  this cloth, for atleast 4 hours or untill the yogurt become firm ,without any moisture. Keep the hung curd in the refrigerator immediately, as it may turn sour quickly. Instead of using hung curd, we can also use greek yogurt.

* Take the mango cubes in a blender, and puree it well. Make sure, we don't have any chunks in the puree.The amount of mango ,we put in the yogurt ,depends on our taste and the colour we need. If we want , a darker colour, add more mangoes.

The mangoes has to be first, peel,cubed and then pureed. Make sure you don't have any piece of the skin.

* Now take a bowl, add the hung curd,powdered sugar and cardamom powder. Mix them well. Adjust the amount of sugar according to your taste.If the mangoes are sweet, then reduce the amount of sugar. My mangoes are not sweeter, so I used 3 tbsp of powdered sugar.

* Now, add the pureed mango to the bowl . Whisk the mix using a hand whisk. We can also use a hand mixer to mix the shirkhand. The texture should be very smooth. So if you are not able to whisk the shirkhand without any lumps, pulse the mixture in the blender for some time. This will yield us a smooth shirkhand. But this is just optional.Serve it chilled.

Notes:
* Try to select ripe and sweet mangoes to prepare mango Shirkhand. This will reduce the amount of sugar to be added.
* The yogurt has to be fresh, if not it will give a sour taste to the dessert.
* Add very little cardamom powder to the dessert. Because it may over power the dessert.
*  Don't hang the yogurt for more time, if not it will become sour.
* Try to whisk the shirkhand using a hand whisk. If you cannot get a smooth shirkhand, then you can use a hand mixer or a blender.
* To get a dark yellow colur, just infuse few strands of saffron in milk and add it to the shirkhand.