Rabri

The skin of cream is lifted off as it forms and set aside, again and again, until the milk is used up.

Vegetarian, but not vegan — contains dairy (whole milk).

Ingredients

• 2 litres whole milk
• 150 g sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon ground cardamom
• 40 g pistachios, slivered
• a pinch of saffron threads, optional

Method

1. THE SKIN OF CREAM IS LIFTED OFF AS IT FORMS AND SET ASIDE, AGAIN AND AGAIN, UNTIL THE MILK IS USED UP. Its article describes the method in those terms: the milk is heated in a wide open pan, and as the layer of cream begins to form on the surface it is TAKEN OFF AND KEPT ASIDE, and the process continues until the milk is exhausted. So this is not a stirred pudding at all. You are harvesting cream in sheets, twenty or thirty times over an hour and a half, pushing each one to the side of the pan to drain and collect. At the end the remaining milk is sweetened and the collected sheets go back in, torn up. The layers have a name -- lachhas, and one version of the dish is built around them.
2. THE PAN IS WIDE AND OPEN, NOT A SAUCEPAN. The widest heavy pan you own. Surface area is the whole mechanism: a skin only forms where milk meets air, so a narrow deep pan gives you a fraction of the yield in the same time.
3. THE MILK IS NEVER STIRRED. This is the one rule. A stir folds the forming skin back into the milk and you end up with thickened milk and no layers, which is Basundi, as on its own page, rather than this.
4. IT IS A LOW HEAT AND IT TAKES AN HOUR AND A HALF. Just below a simmer, so the surface barely moves. Too hot and the skin browns and the milk catches underneath.
5. EACH SHEET IS PUSHED TO THE SIDE AND LEFT TO DRY A LITTLE. Nudge it up the side of the pan with a spatula rather than lifting it out. It keeps draining back in, and it firms up where the pan is hot above the milk line.
6. THE SUGAR GOES IN AT THE END, NOT THE START. Once the milk is down to a quarter of its volume. Sugar in from cold slows the skin forming and makes the base catch.
7. THE SHEETS ARE TORN, NOT BLENDED. Returned to the sweetened milk in rough pieces with the cardamom and pistachios. The texture of a rabri is unevenly layered and a smooth one has been overworked.
8. IT IS CHILLED, AND IT IS AN INGREDIENT AS OFTEN AS A DESSERT. Its article names three sweets built on it, two of which are pages here: Rasabali, as on its own page, and Chhena Kheeri, as on its own page. Served alone it goes in a bowl cold.

Our own recipe. This one was written for this site rather than taken from anywhere, so there is no source to point you at. The quantities and the order of the steps are choices, not the only way to do it.

Filed under India · All recipes