Kulfi is Indian-style ice-cream. I first encountered kulfi when I spent a semester at Cornell University in upstate New York in 2004. I had an Indian-American housemate and she invited me to a fundraiser for Asha, where the local chapter prepared a three-course vegetarian Indian meal. The kulfi had been frozen in little cups - it was sweet and milky with occasional crunches of slivered almonds and an intriguing taste that I couldn't identify. I now know that taste was ground cardamom, and the spice has become intrinsically linked with Indian sweets in my mind. Since then I've noticed that many Indian restaurants have kulfi on their dessert menu, but I tend to make it at home instead: not only did the Cornell Asha Chapter put on an inspiring dinner, but they gave their guests recipes for all the dishes served. Rather than stirring almonds into the mixture, I served kulfi scoops surrounded by toasted slivered almonds. It was quite the treat to enjoy with Main Hoon Na!Kulfi
(makes roughly a litre)
Whisk together roughly equal parts of sweetened condensed milk, ricotta and cream (I used a can [~400g] of condensed milk, a 250g tub of ricotta and 300mL bottle of cream). Stir in about a teaspoon of ground cardamom, then chill the mixture. When it is very cold, freeze in an ice-cream maker according to the manufacturer's instructions. Serve with slivered almonds or pistachios.
One of my favourites! A nice variation is shelled pistachios and/or saffron.
ReplyDeleteThose are both great ideas, Truffle!
ReplyDeleteCindy, I would love to do this - but I don't have an ice-cream maker. You may think me a Luddite - but I have never even seen one. Having got to my great age & antiquity without one, needless to say I am not rushing over to The Good Guys to get one. Have you any suggestions or could you give consideration to a method which would include either my trusty Kenwood Chef or my ever more trusty and old-fashioned rotary beater? Thank you for dropping by the biscuit cutters.
ReplyDeleteMiss Eagle, an ice-cream maker is certainly a luxury and not a kitchen necessity! Its purpose is to continue whipping the ice-cream mixture as it freezes to make the texture as creamy as possible.
ReplyDeleteThe second-best method is to use an electric beater: whip the ice-cream mixture and freeze for a couple of hours, until it has set but not too hard. Then whip it again with your electric beater and re-freeze. The more times you repeat these steps, the creamier the ice-cream will be.
If you try making ice-cream with this method I'd love to read about it, here or in your blog. :-)