Badam Elaichi Shrikhand | बादाम इलायची श्रीखंड

 Shrikand needs no introduction. Traditional dessert made from hung curd in various flavors is a must have accompaniment during a festive meal in states of Maharashtra and Gujarat.  

Needless to say, having grown up in the cosmopolitan, buzzling city of Bombay, shrikand has always been a part of my life . Me and my dad love to have hot puris or fluffy fulkas with creamy shrikand . Mum on the other hand was not a great fan of shrikand and I must say hubby too doesn't relish sweets as much and shrikand is a big No for him .  So shrikand makes a rare appearance these days at my home . 

Kesar Pista Shrikand is already on the blog and now it is time for Badam Elaichi Shrikand . The chopped bits of almonds/badams hidden inside the shrikand are  great to bite into. I also add some cardamom seeds as is to shrikand along with fine cardamom powder . 

Shrikand is a royal treat to serve your guests or even make it as a prasad during Ganesh Chaturthi or Navaratri. 

Pre Preparation time - 2 to 5 hrs 

Cooking Time - Nil 

Actual Preparation - 5 mins 

Serves - 2 to 3

Ingredients 

400ml thick yogurt or dahi or curd

1/2 tsp cardamom powder 

1 - 2 whole cardamoms

4 to 5 strands saffron /kesar 

2 to 3 tablespoons chopped unsalted badam /almonds 

3 tbsp powdered  sugar 

Preparation of Hung curd

Take a wide mixing bowl and place a strainer over it lined with a muslin cloth/ cotton cloth and pour the curd into the cloth . I have used shop bought thick curd for an even consistency. 

Bring the ends of the cloth together, squeeze it once and tie it very tightly . Place a heavy object over the tied cloth and leave the colander over the mixing bowl so that all the whey water will get collected in it . Keep squeezing the cloth occasionally to drain the excess water . 

After about 2 to 3 hrs , you can see all the whey collected in the bowl below and when you open the cloth all that is left is thick creamy mass which is hung curd . Squeeze it once again before removing it from the cloth to ensure there is no water content left.  When you touch the hung curd , it should appear thick and creamy without any excess water.  If you find it watery, leave it for somemore time in  the cloth with the weight on . 

Donot waste the collected whey, you can use it while kneading the dough for rotis or even to prepare buttermilk or Chaas. 

Preparation of Shrikhand

• Transfer the hung curd to a wide mixing bowl .Add in the powdered sugar , chopped almonds. Saffron strands ,cardamom powder and the cardamom seeds.
• Mix well with a spoon until all the ingredients blend well . Keep it in the refrigerator for it to set well . 
• Take it off the refrigerator just before serving. 

Cinnamon Tea | Dalchini Chai

 My experiments with different spices for flavoring my evening tea continues and this time it is  Cinnamon/Dalchini which gets featured as the special spice. 

I always prefer to use fresh and whole spices for making my Masala tea rather than the pre packed store bought ones . I feel we can control the level of flavor we want to be infused into the tea when we use fresh spices . We can add or subtract the quantity of ingredients depending on our personal liking .

Initially I was a little hesitant as to how cinnamon would taste in our Indian chai , but I went ahead and tried brewing my tea with cinnamon and cardamom and surprisingly people at home loved the taste and asked me to make tea this way going forward .

The mild sweetness from the cinnamon added a nice woody flavor to the tea . The trick to get the perfect taste is to not over boil the cinnamon stick in water.Excess boiling will release strong flavor of the cinnamon which may not be liked by all .  As cinnamon is a bark of a tree it has a naturally sweet woody flavor.  A small stick about 1/2 inch of high quality cinnamon is enough to brew tea for 3 people. 

Preparation Time - 2 mins

Cooking Time - 15 mins

Complexity - simple

Makes - 3 cups of tea 

Ingredients 

1.25 cups water
2 cups warm milk 
3 tsp good quality tea leaves 
1/2 inch stick cinnamon/dalchini/pattai
1/2 tsp cardamom/elaichi powder 
Sugar as per taste 

Method 

• Add the water to a sauce pan and let it begin to warm up.
• As you see bubbles , add in the cinnamon stick and elaichi/cardamom powder along with sugar. 
• Once, you get a wafting aroma of cinnamon, add in the tea leaves and let the tea brew. It should take about 4 to 5 min for the tea to get infused with all the flavors from the spices.
• Add the warm milk and let it come to a rolling boil.
• Strain and serve hot with your favorite snack or biscuits.

My other two most favorite tea variants which you may want to try .  Click the images below for recipe .

Adrak Elaichi Chai / Elaikkai Inji Tea

Saffron Cardamom Tea / Kesar Elaichi tea

Kesar Elaichi Sharbat | Saffron Cardamom Cooler

 Saffron is the most expensive spice produced in the whole world and this is probably the only crop that needs to be harvested Manually and cannot be done by any modern machinery. 

The labour intensive process involved in the production and the delicate handling makes this the world's costliest spice . 1 pound (approx 490gms) can range anywhere between  500 USD to 5000 USD .

Saffron / Kesar is cultivated almost all over the globe but Spain , Kashmir and Iran are considered to produce the highest quality pure saffron .Iran produces almost 90% of the global production of Saffron and most of it is exported world wide . Afghanistan, Greece and Italy also are involved in the production of Saffron.

Some Interesting facts about Saffron

• It takes roughly 40hrs to pick 1,50,000 saffron flowers known as Crocus 
• 2,00,000 stigmas from 70,000 flowers will yield approx 450gms of saffron.
• One saffron crocus flower produces just 3 stigmas.
• The quality and strength of the saffron isn't the same world wide . The purest unadulterated saffron will have more stigmas and red strands and will release a natural yellow color with a mild soothing fragrance when immersed in milk / water. 

Saffron Test

Despite lot of quality checks and processes in place, adulterated saffron is widely available in the markets and we need to be careful while buying them. 

• Original Saffron when immersed in milk or water , will naturally turn the water or milk to light yellow . This can take anywhere between 15 mins to 1 hr.
• Once immersed, if you rub the strands between your fingers , they shouldn't break or disintegrate .
• If the water or milk immediately turns yellow or orange or red then the saffron is adulterated. 
• If the water or milk remains colorless , then the strands aren't saffron at all.

Saffron Storage

• Always store saffron in a cool dry place .
• Preferably store it in a glass bottle .
• Never keep the saffron in plastic cover even if it comes in that packing. 

Benefits of saffron

• Mood enhancer and mild usage of saffron is known to reduce stress levels and cheer one up.
• Saffron in warm milk is said to handle PMS and mood swing issues in women.
• Saffron is an antioxidant. 
• Saffron is an aphrodisiac. 

The  266th week of FMBH is a very rich and royal week with Saffron as the star ingredient suggested by Mayuri ji of Mayuri's Jikoni. Needless to say her blog is a treasure chest of lip smacking delicacies and her latest Gujurati Thali was nothing short of a Royal feast.

As most of you know I have a special soft corner for Kesar and cardamom and no sweet I make is devoid of these two royal and exotic spices.  Donot miss to check some exotic Saffron based desserts on my blog listed below. 

Kesar Pista Kulfi

Kesar Pista Shrikhand 

Kesar  Badam Milk 

Kesar Peda

Emirati Spl Saffron Tea

This time around , though I had many sweets in my mind which use saffron,  I wanted to prepare something where Saffron was the Hero ,to do justice to the title "Exotic Saffron" .

I had the chance to taste this refreshing Kesar Sharbat  with mild flavor of saffron and elaichi at a function few years back and when I prepared the Emirati Special Karak Chai using saffron , I was reminded of this cooler and as luck would have it I get to blog it this week.  A big thanks to Mayuri ji for suggesting this and claps to all my co bloggers for having voted for this choice .

It hardly takes 10 mins to prepare this sherbet and about an hour to cool . If you are hosting a party or get together with your family or friends , all you have to do is prepare this sharbat in advance and chill it for a few hours. You are all set to treat your guests to a Royal exotic welcome drink .

Preparation Time - 10mins

Cooking Time - 3 mins

Complexity - simple

Makes 2 glasses ( 200ml each)

Ingredients 

400 ml water (2 cups)
10 to 12 strands saffron 
1 tsp cardamom powder 
4 tsp sugar ( + / - as per your taste)

Method

• Soak the saffron strands in warm water for 10 mins to release the flavor and color. 
• Boil the water with sugar until sugar dissolves. No need for any string consistency. 
• Add in the soaked saffron , cardamom powder and bring it to a rolling boil.  The saffron strands on further boiling will give out a bright orangish yellow color and a soothing aroma.
• Bring it to room temperature and refrigerate it until serving. Serve chilled . Add in some ice cubes if you wish.

Tips 

• If you feel the sugar has a lot of  dust, then add a few drops of lime juice to remove the scum. Filter the sugar syrup and then add the saffron strands to prepare the sharbat.
• You can add a few drops of rose water if you like the taste.I kept it plain because the flavor of saffron is very soothing and refreshing 

Chai Karak - Emirati spiced Tea

 Kalyani of Sizzling Tastebuds made us take a virtual food tour of UAE / Middle East and explore their cuisine by suggesting #EmiratiEats as the theme for the 265th week of Foodie Monday Bloghop weekly activity.  

She was liberal enough and allowed us to stretch beyond the boundaries of UAE and even explore Middle Eastern cuisine if we weren't comfortable just with options from the countries of United Arab Emirates (Abu Dhabi , Ajman, Dubai, Fujairah, Ras Al Khaimah, Sharjah and Umm Al Quwain.)

Initially, I was a little doubtful if I would be able to pull through this challenge because of paucity of time to procure certain ingredients which were not available easily at the local stores and the online delivery dint have an immediate delivery slot. So, I continued reading and researching further on the various vegetarian recipes prepared in the Middle East / UAE to zero down on something which can be prepared with what is available at home.

While doing so , I found that there is quite a lot of similarity in the Indian Cuisine and the Middle Eastern cuisine especially in sweets and hot beverages. It was nice to read about the usage of various spices in their cuisine. 

The Arabs love their spices and no recipe is complete without the addition of the exotic spices. Rose water , cardamom and saffron occupy the top place in their recipes.Needless to say , I too love the flavors of cardamom and saffron which I widely used in Indian Desserts too.

I found 3 recipes which were very interesting of which I finalised Chai Karak / Karak Chai - I too love my tea with exotic flavors just like the Emiratis so this really caught my attention.  

The other two recipes Khabeesa and Laban / Leben were equally intriguing to try which I am sure to do soon.  

• Khabeesa is a close cousin of the Indian Sheera / sooji / aate ka halwa but made using date sugar and flavored with rose water.  Some recipes use wheat flour as main ingredient while some call for sooji/semolina/ Farina .
• 
  
• Laban or Leben is plain buttermilk which is obtained after churning the yogurt to extract butter from it .

Chai Karak 

Sources from the internet quote that Tea /coffee culture has been a part of the Emirati Hospitality since time in memorial and every guest is treated with a cup of coffee or tea along with some dates . The Arabian Coffee is served as Black Coffee while the Tea is generally brewed with milk and some spices.  

Karak/kadak in hindi means "Strong".

Karak Chai means the tea prepared has a stronger brew . The tea concoction is simmered along with the spices until all the flavors are infused into the decoction.

The traditional Emiratis or older generation love their tea spcied with cardamom and saffron and sweetened using sugar . Other spices like cinnamon, ginger etc are added depending upon personal preferences. 

 I could sense the emotional connect between the Desi Cutting Chai and the Emirati Karak Chaai.

Just as we Indians love to sip on our tea at the " Chaai Tapris/ Tea kadai "  the Nationals of UAE also have a special love for tea and the tea shacks are open 24 hrs along the highways where people throng to catch a cuppa of nice hot tea flavored with spices as they drive along. 

Some recipes call for the using of Evaporated milk in the preparation of Karak Chai but it tastes equally good with regular milk too . If you follow Vegan diet , you may substitute with Almond or Soy Milk. 

Preparation Time - 5 mins

Brewing Time  - 15 to 20 min

Serves - 2 

Complexity - Easy 

Ingredients 

2.5 tsp good quality tea leaves 

1.25 cups water 

1 cup milk 

2 tbsp condensed milk (optional) 

2 tsp sugar ( + or - as per your taste)

3 to 4 green cardamom coarsely powdered 

7 to 8 strands saffron / kesar

Method

• Take the water in a sauce pan and add in the tea leaves and bring it to a simmering boil .
• Once it begins to boil, add in the cardamom powder and saffron strands and continue simmering on low flame .
• When you feel the aroma of saffron , cardamom and tea waft through, add in the sugar . 
• By this time , the tea decoction would have brewed in well .  Remember to keep the flame low at all time else the tea leaves on excess boiling will bring in a bitter taste and we don't want that.
• Lastly , add in the warm milk and condensed milk , stir well and bring to a boil.
• Strain this tea and serve while hot . You can add on a few strands of saffron while serving for added flavor and taste.

Tips

1. Condensed milk already has sugar , so adjust sugar keeping that in mind. 
2. Coarsely ground cardamom powder gives a nice flavor to the tea rather than finely ground cardamom powder.
3. The slow simmering is the technique to get the Karak Chai right , so donot lose patience and increase the flame to brew the tea. 1.25 cups of water must reduce to 1 cup by way of simmering. 

Some lipsmacking Middle Eastern/ Emirati recipes from my fellow bloggers 

Minty Lentil & Walnut Pilaf  ;a delicacy from Oman by Kalyani 

Lavaash / Lavaas by Archana ; a flat bread variety from Middle East 

Mint Almond Hummus by Sujata  is a delectable hummus with a flavor of mint.

Shorbat Adas by Mayuri ji is a lentil based shorba/ soup popularly made during Ramadan for breaking the Fast / Roza.

Spicy Carrot Hummus by Swaty is absolutely colorful and spiced up using Sriracha sauce. 

Baba Ghanoush by Poonam is a lipsmacking dip made using roasted Brinjals and flavored with tahini sauce. 

Linking this Karak Chai to week #265 - EmiratiEats of FMBH

Ginger Cardamom Tea

Morning cup of tea or coffee is the main energy booster for most of us. A perfectly brewed cup of tea or coffee can really make our day .
South Indians like to  begin their day with a strong cup of filter coffee while most North Indians prefer to sip on a cup hot tea . If the tea is infused with some flavors of herbs and spices it adds more taste instead of the plain tea .
Ginger and cardamom both have a lot of medicinal effects on the human body if consumed regularly and in moderation . Helps aid digestion, boosts immunity , helps combat cold/ cough and body aches due to erratic weather condition.

Preparation Time : 2mins
Cooking Time : 10 mins
Serves : 2
Complexity : Simple