Indian Sweets - Mango Frozen Yoghurt Dessert with Rosewater and Cardamom

I was inspired by Kim's blog to try out some frozen yoghurt. All of us love our icecreams, but Kay's on a healthy kick so we are trying to cut down on the fat. I didn't like the frozen yoghurts I got from the supermarket, so when Kim blogged about the strawberry yoghurt icecream, it was a kick to try my own version instead of just moaning about the supermarket ones.

I love mangoes, but find that fresh ones here are brutally expensive, plus they have not got the real mangoey flavour that I am used to. So I decided to use tinned alphonso mango puree that is available at most Indian grocers. I found mine at the Indian House of Spices in Edmonton (there's a story about how I found the store, but more on that in a later post) and bought two big tins. Most of these tins will already have been sweetened and will have citric acid, so you don't need to use lemon juice or very much sugar. I tend to use pineapple juice to give the yoghurt a tropical flavour (as if the mangoes were'nt enough!). This would taste amazing with fresh mango puree though, so if you happen to have some ripe mangoes around, I do suggest you try using those instead. The rosewater and powdered cardamom give the yoghurt a lovely fragrant aroma, along with a slight spiciness, which I like.

I don't have an icecream maker, so the method I use is detailed below. The texture of the dessert is almost sorbet like, but creamier. I will put up more pics tomorrow, as I am serving this up as a dessert for a dinner party. The pic today is the batch I made to test the recipe out, and it got the thumbs up from Kay and Aditi (who scoffed a whole bowl up and wanted more!)

This would work with a lot of other fruits as well as with flavours like chai, which is my next project.

Recipe:

2 cups pureed mango (use tinned for an easy out-of-season treat) 500 ml
1 cup greek style yoghurt or plain natural yoghurt - 250 ml
1 tsp rosewater
2 tbsp orange or pineapple juice
1 cardamom pod, seeds removed and crushed to a fine powder (optional)
4 tsp white caster sugar
2 tbsp honey
2 tbsp roughly chopped unsalted pistachios (opt)
Mint leaves to garnish

Method:

Hang the yoghurt up at least 2 hours in a muslin or thin cotton cloth, if you are able (and don’t have a curious cat!), as it drains the water out of the yoghurt and makes for a much creamier dessert. To hang, spread the cloth out into a bowl, put the yoghurt into the middle and bring together the edges of the cloth. Wrap a rubber band around the fold and tie the cloth over a sink or somewhere, with a bowl under it to catch the drained water.

Mix together the mango puree, rosewater, orange/ pineapple juice, sugar and crushed cardamom seeds.

Whisk the yoghurt into the mango mixture until it’s all well mixed together and creamy.

As I don’t have an icecream maker (are you reading this, husband?) I used the ‘take-out and beat every hour for four hours’ method. Basically, put the yoghurt into a freezable bowl, freeze for an hour, take out and whisk well, put back, freeze another hour, take out and whisk well... you get it! At the fourth whisk, swirl in the honey, don’t over mix, you want streaks of it through the dessert.

After the fourth hour, leave to freeze overnight or for six hours at least. Take out and rest for 10 minutes or so before serving. Serve with the chopped pistachios and mint leaves as garnish.
Enjoy!