Mango Kulfi Straight Out Of The Mold! Plus, A GitaDini Giveaway!

   I've been pretty busy since the last time I posted here. I've come a long way from the hazelnut cookies. I meant to get back here sooner but...idili. Anyone who's ever tried making those soft pillowy treats knows what I'm talking about. Idili may look deceptively simple, but unless you're making them from a package mix, they're not that easy. First there's the soaking of the rice and dal, then there's the grinding, then there's the fermenting and with the temperature dipping below freezing up here in Sonoma right now it's not the most salubrious time for that process.
  
   But why Idili, and why now? Well the  nice people at Gitadini USA  were kind enough to ask me if I'd like to try out their new silicone idili molds.

I use many of their products in my own kitchen and so of course the answer was YES! Idili I thought, no problem. I'd made idili before, what's the big deal? The big deal as it turns out was I needed a good idili recipe. In the past I'd made rava idili but could not find my recipe for that. So what does one do about a missing recipe? I went to the source of my Indian cooking and contacted the person who started me on this path 25 years ago. I called my sister in law.
 
   When I told her I was making idili, she laughed. "From scratch? Nobody in India bothers to make those from scratch any more. It's too much work. Why do you want to make idili anyway?"
 
I explained about the molds, how cute the half  moon shapes were, how I'd planned a wonderful fresh coconut chutney, how I'd invited people over... My sister in law uses the old fashioned idili steaming tray, the same one I've used before on the rare and distant occasion when I'd made idili. I explained how beautiful these new silicone steamers were, how I was dying to break them in.

   "Good luck" she said, "get a mix."
 
   I plowed ahead with my soaking and grinding  (I'd found a recipe online), I poured  my rice and dal into my Ninja blender and got a batter. I turned on my warming oven to its lowest setting then turned it off and popped the bowl of idili batter wrapped in a towel inside. Sunday morning I'd planned to have idili and chutney and chai. Dreamer. As I waited by the steamer, I was starting to get discouraged.

My idili fantasy turned into a nightmare.  Instead of pillowy soft  cloud like idili, I had tough idili.

So tough they refused to leave the molds. Now we're talking silicone molds here so those were some hard ass idili. Shockingly, when I tried in my embarrassment to toss them, no one would let me.  It seems, though the texture was totally wrong, I'd  devised some sort of breakfast crumpet, that paired with the spicy coconut chutney tasted delicious. As long as you don't look at what you're eating. So ok, a week wasted on failed idili recipes. I was back to square one and googling idili mixes when I started my cancer treatment.
 
   My tumor was very very small and thankfully had not gone anywhere when I had surgery at UCSF in December. I fall into a grey area as far as additional treatment goes. Very small cancer, no nodal involvement, to treat or not to treat. As it turns out, with targeted biologic treatment the survival rate goes from 90% up to 98% and I like those odds a whole lot better, so I'm doing that. It won't impact my hair etc and I'm glad for my weird mutated DNA that there's something that works on it, as opposed to 25 years ago, when I had a much riskier situation. In short they hadn't even discovered my gene yet. So I've been running around dealing with that, and banging my head against the idili wall ( which in my case is not pillowy and soft)!

   I knew I needed to regroup, clearly this idili thing needed further study. It was either fly my sis in law out here for further research, (she had plans to go to Key West where it's even warmer), buy a mix or pour something else into those molds. But what??? Then it hit me, Kulfi! Easy, sweet, and who doesn't like ice cream? It could even be made vegan if I so desired. So Kulfi it was.

Mango Cardamom Kulfi

Here's What You Need:
2 mangoes, peeled and chopped
1 can evaporated milk (full fat)
1 can sweetened condensed milk
2 cups of whipping cream
1 large pinch of ground cardamom

Here's What To Do:
Peel and chop the mangoes into pieces. Here's how:

Puree the mango in a food processor or blender and set it aside.

In  a bowl whisk together the sweetened condensed milk and the evaporated milk.

 Add in the whipping cream.

And the pinch of ground cardamom.

Whisk the pureed mango into the milk mixture, blend it in well.

Pour the kulfi  into the molds. Don't fill them all the way up as it will expand slightly.

Cover the top of the molds with foil and place them in the freezer until they are solid.

This takes a few hours, so plan ahead.
When the kulfi has set, unmold...

...and enjoy!

   I really loved these GitaDini molds and they're letting me share a mold with someone. So if you'd like to get one of these idili molds drop me a comment. Let me know what you're planning. These molds can be used for ANYTHING, and not just idili. Bake in them, make ice cream, a savory dish, whatever.

   Just give  @GitaDiniUSA and @kathygori a shout out on Twitter, or just leave a comment right below. It's all good. I'll choose someone via random.com in one week. To win. you must reside in the USA.

   I've been using GitaDini products in my home for several years now I know you're going to love them just as much as I do! Coming up next, I shall not surrender the idili fight and more easy Indian recipes for busy days and nights, follow along on Twitter @kathygori

Making Kulfi. Easy, Beautiful Indian Ice Cream, No Machines!

 
   Over the last 21 years I have cooked a lot of Indian food. I've tried my hand at a lot of different things from wrapping samosas, to frying vadi, baking chapatti and dhoklas, naan and coorgi. I've made rice puddings and payasams, burfi and modaks. I've pickled and cured and smoked. There's not much I haven't tried and when you see the picture above, you're looking at one of them.
   It's called Kulfi and it is a creamy frozen Indian dessert. Some people call it Indian ice cream but that's not really what it is. Ice cream is whipped, beaten and aerates as it's freezes as anybody who's ever cranked one of those old-timey ice cream machines knows only too well. Making kulfi involves no whipping and no beating. It's mixed together, then poured into molds and frozen. It's richer, creamier and much, much denser than ice cream. It's also a lot easier to make even if you already own an ice cream machine.
  Don't get me wrong. I love my ice cream machine. It's one of the best purchases I ever made, but it's got it's faults (don't we all) one of which is the need to freeze the mixer bowl for at least 24 hours before any ice cream can be made. Sure there are automatic, all-in-one units that will give you instant ice cream just by flipping the switch any time one desires it. But I kind of look on my machine as good pants emergency brake. It keeps me from going too ice cream crazy too easily. If I want to eat ice cream, I have to think about it for 24 hours at least. It allows for cooler heads (and some extra workout time) to prevail. Of course once my bowl is frozen I just need to flip a switch and 30 minutes later I'm eating ice cream, so there is that.
   With kulfi it's a lot simpler. Mix, pour, freeze, enjoy. It doesn't get much simpler than that. So why oh why did it take me soooo long to get on the kulfi train?  I thought I needed kulfi molds. Most of the kulfi I'd seen was served like this.

I thought okay, I don't have official kulfi molds like the kulfiwallahs, so why try. And then I went to my gleaning pal  Kristens' tag sale and found this for a dollar!

It was begging to be filled with creamy, mangoey, nutty goodness. It called to me.. .buy me buy me, you know you want kulfi. Just do it. So, I did.
  The next thing was finding the best way to make kulfi. There are a lot of recipes out there and a lot of techniques. Many ways of making classic kulfi involve reducing milk that's been sweetened and flavored down to evaporated milk consistency by slow cooking, usually in clay pots and lots of stirring. Since this dessert was once reserved for Indian royalty, finding ice and elbow grease was not anything they had to worry about much. They had people to take care of that for them.
   Now that's all well and good, and I may actually decide to do it that way one of these days. But right now we're in the finishing stages of our latest script, and the only thing that I'm thinking about reducing is the page count. Luckily (since I don't have a palace staff at my beck and call) there's another easier way to tackle this dessert, and that's using a combination of evaporated milk, condensed milk and cream, minimal stirring involved.
   One of the classic flavors of kulfi is mango...think of it as the kulfi equivalent of vanilla ice cream.  So that's what I made. With a minimum of work and a few hours of freezing, I was eating fabulous mango kulfi.

Kulfi

Here's what to do:
Peel and chunk up 2 ripe mangos

Put them in a blender or food processor and reduce to a puree. Set aside.
 In a large bowl mix together:
  1 can of evaporated milk
  1 can of swetened condensed milk
  2 cups of whipping cream

Mix everything well together and add in:
 1/2 cup of finely ground pistachios

  5 green cardamom
Remove the seeds and grind them to a powder. Add it into the mix.
Finally mix in the mango puree.
When everything is blended, pour the mixture into a mold or a round stainless steel mixing bowl, or popsicle molds, whatever you have.

 Cover the top of the mold with foil so that it's sealed tightly and set it into the freezer for the next 4 to 6 hours.
To unmold  run some hot or warm water over the bottom of the mold and place it over the serving pate or dish...unmold!

Cut it into slices and serve it up!

   Kulfi is a creamy, dense dessert, very refreshing on a hot, early Fall evening or after a spicy Indian feast. No elbow grease churning re freezing or machinery involved.
   I loved this dessert! So did everyone else at the table. I was wondering where this treat had been all my life! I should have made kulfi years ago, but now that I know how easy it is, I'm certainly going to be making it more often. I can't wait to experiment with other flavor options.
   The next thing on my must have list are real pyramid shaped kulfi molds and hitting up more tag sales in the hope of unearthing some interestingly shaped vintage jello molds. I'm also determined in my quest for old skool authenticity to try making this treat in clay the old fashioned way. As soon as the script is safely turned in, I'm going to be giving it a whirl. Yes, really.
  Coming up next, I pack a peck of pickled peppers with a little help from my friend Prerna at Indian Simmer. Follow along on Twitter @kathygori