Strawberry and Orange rabdi

It rarely happens that I try my hand at making Indian sweets. Indian sweets are complex or may be I am the one who is apprehensive. Husband and myself are quite different in terms of our liking for food. Though both of us are foodies, he loves to devour Indian chaat while I enjoy Italian and Thai food more. And when it comes to sweets, he adores rabdi, jalebi, ghewar, dal ka halwa and I am all about decadent cakes. Speaking of cakes, I recently shared recipe of Red Velvet cake which you must try!

Festival of Holi is here and I finally tried my hand at making rabdi. Rabdi which is quite popular in India is basically reduced milk which is sweetened and flavored. It is best eaten with rasgulla, jalebi, ghewar and malpuas but can be relished on its own too. I myself enjoy a good helping of it spooned over crisp jalebis.

Though I have never been fond of playing holi,I always enjoyed the sight of people playing from the balcony of my house. Mom would make a big batch of homemade Thandai with dried rose petals, melon, poppy and fennel seeds to welcome guests. Whole house would smell of potato chips fried in ghee and packed in a container which brother and myself enjoyed all day. As a kid, my brother always refused to stop playing holi and come back home before lunch time. Honestly, I quite enjoy it when people turn up in office and school all pink.

I know I have already shared three recipes using strawberries but while they are available, I want to include them in my recipes as much as I can. If you love strawberries like me , then don't forget to check out my recipe of healthy Strawberry smoothie and Strawberry and Orange salad. My Strawberry- Brownie Trifle tastes decadent too and comes together easily with left-over brownie/cake and ganache.

After making this easy rabdi,I flavoured half batch with fresh strawberry puree and another with orange segments. I can't tell you delicious it was! I just wanted to keep eating more. It was addictive. And you really have to use full fat milk for this recipe otherwise it won't taste half as good.

I had shared the recipe with The Society and they have publish my recipe in their Crave section. The Society is a south-east Asian lifestyle magazine which is dedicated to the young, modern and creative generation. Apart from Crave section, my other favourite reads are from their Knot section where they feature posts about all things related to wedding! You must check it for the beautiful pictures.

Delicious and easy to make Indian classic dessert, Rabdi. Make it this Holi for your family and guests. Its simplicity and Indian feel will want you to make it again!

Ingredients

1+1/2 litre milk

125 gms sugar
1/4th Tsp cardamom powder

2 Tsp cornflour +1/4th cup milk
Few strands of saffron (soaked in milk)

8-10 strawberries, cored

Segment of 2 oranges
Pistachio and almond shavings

Method

Pour milk in a deep saucepan and simmer on low heat until it reduces to 1 litre in quantity. Keep stirring in between and make sure that the milk doesn’t stick to the pan.

Once milk reduces, add sugar and soaked saffron and simmer until sugar is dissolved.

Dissolve corn flour in 1/4th cup milk and add to rabdi mixture. Simmer until it thickens slightly and remove from heat.

Once it cools down slightly, add cardamom powder and churn with hand blender. (If you like malai/milk skin then you can skip this step). Refrigerate rabdi for at least 2 hours.

Divide cooled rabdi mixture into two parts.

For the strawberry rabdi, puree strawberries with 1 tsp icing sugar in processor. Mix this puree in rabdi mixture. Garnish with chopped strawberries, pistachio shavings and serve.

For orange rabdi, take out segments of orange and freeze for an hour. Now slit orange segments from behind, open it up and take out orange flesh. Mix orange flesh in rabdi and garnish with almond shavings to serve.