3-4 sweet variety medium sized ripe mangoes(Alphonso variety)
1 Tbsp sugar
Few strands of kesar/saffron
500 ml yogurt/thick sweet curd which yields around 2 Cups of hung yogurt
5-6 chopped up pistachios to garnish
Method
On a deep bowl, keep a strainer which stands on it such that the strainer's base does not touch the base of the bowl. Line it with a clean muslin cloth
Pour in the yogurt into the muslin cloth slowly. Whey starts dripping out of the yogurt and gets collected in the bowl. Keep this bowl along with strainer, cloth and yogurt in refrigerator overnight. Whey continues to drip out and beautiful set creamy hung curd remains inside the muslin cloth
Scrape hung curd into another bowl. Whisk till smooth using a wired whisk or beat lightly with a small spoon. Keep aside
Add few saffron strands and mix well
Use finger tips to slowly press the ripe mangoes. In another bowl, squeeze out all the mango pulp, scrape out the peels and the seed for all the pulp. Make sure mango is sweet. Pour this pulp into the whisked yogurt. Repeat this for remaining mangoes. Pour all of the pulp into whisked yogurt
Add sugar and few more saffron strands. Lightly mix everything, scrape out all the yogurt from the bottom and ensure mango pulp gets mixed evenly
Once everything is mixed well, cover the bowl with a cling wrap and refrigerate for few hours or overnight
Serve chilled with chopped pistachios, saffron strands on top
Notes
Use naturally ripened mangoes, sweet varieties like Alphonso are the best
Adjust sugar according to sweetness of mangoes
Use homemade yogurt as it will be fresh and sweet
You can even chop/dice up mangoes and blend them. Mango pulp can also blended into a smooth paste in blender or mixie. The mangoes I had, gave out nice creamy pulp which I added directly to retain the mango texture
It is best to squeeze out mangoes one by one separately just in case a mango is bad inside. This way all your mixture does not go a waste if one mango turns out bad.
Pressing mangoes prior to squeezing out pulp loosens all pulp inside and yields an even textured pulp
Chilling is very important, it enhances the flavour of the shrikhand and saffron works it magic through
Recipe can be doubled
Recipe by Food Of Interest at https://foodofinterest.com/mango-shrikhand/