Name: Cardamom Pistachio Kulfi (Pista Kulfi)
Prep time: 10 min
Total time: 6 h 10 min
Yield: 6 - 10
Ingredients: 2 3/4 c. whole milk; 2 c. heavy cream; 1/4 tsp. kosher salt; 1/2 tsp. ground cardamom; 1/3 c. granulated sugar; 1/3 c. roasted pistachios, finely chopped

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- Hi, my name is Hetal Vasavada and today I'm gonna be showing you guys how to make kulfi. So kulfi is an ice cream that's typically found in India, Pakistan, and various parts of South Asia. It's harder than a ice cream, much creamier, not as soft as a typical ice cream that you might have here in the U.S. Most kulfi are flavored with spices, like saffron and cardamom, and other kulfis are also flavored with nuts and fruits and all sorts of mix-ins. But today, I'm gonna be showing you guys how to make a cardamom pistachio kulfi. The difference between kulfi and regular ice cream, in one sense, is that kulfi is typically found in an ice cream bar or ice pop version, or it's sold in a little terracotta pot in India. Indian kulfi is made by boiling down heavy cream and milk until pretty much all the liquid, or the water has evaporated off so that all you're left with is the milk fat. And the milk fat is what prevents it from getting hard and icy in the freezer. So the first thing we're gonna do to get started is add our milk into our pot over medium high heat. Then we add our heavy cream. Then you're also gonna add a little bit of salt. This is not really traditional in kulfis, but I tend to add it just because I really think salt brings out the sweetness in the milk fat, and it just makes it that much tastier. I believe all desserts should have salt. This is a rule that I live by and so should you. We're not gonna add the sugar or the pistachios just yet. We're gonna let this come to a boil. And now I'm gonna also add my ground cardamom. Please, please, please use freshly ground cardamom in this case. If you're buying pre-ground cardamom from the grocery store, it's not gonna be as potent so I really recommend using an extra quarter teaspoon of the cardamom, just so that you get the flavor. As the milk is coming to a boil, you're going to stir this continuously. It's gonna take about six minutes for this to come to a boil. So once your mixture comes to a boil, we're gonna let this simmer for 45 minutes, which seems like a very long time, I know, but you really wanna get rid of as much of the water that's in the milk so that you have a nice creamy kulfi. Make sure you keep an eye on it because milk does tend to boil over. I like to stir it every five to 10 minutes, and you're gonna keep the heat on medium low, closer to the low end. And you guys, it smells so good. It smells like sweet cream and like everything good in life. So the reason why you keep stirring while it's gonna come up to a boil is because you don't wanna scald it because it is on medium high heat you could scald the bottom of the pan and all that milk would pretty much burn and give you a very nasty, nasty flavor that we really don't want. Oh, see, so it's come up to a boil. I'm gonna take it off the heat so it doesn't boil over. Now, I'm gonna turn my heat down to medium low, closer to the low end. I'll see you guys in 45 minutes once this is boiled down and thickened, and then we'll add the sugar and the pistachios and let it actually boil for another couple minutes, just to make sure that all the liquid's gone and we don't have an icy kulfi, that is the key. You could do the same thing with milk and heavy cream and add whatever flavoring you want. You can add chocolate. You could add fruit preserves, really anything. This is the simplest and easiest way of making ice cream, honestly, in my opinion. All right, so it's been 45 minutes. Our milk has gotten really thick and creamy. You can see it's now coating the back of my spatula slightly. So now what we're going to do is add in our sugar. And we're gonna give that a stir and make sure that all the sugar is dissolved. You're gonna let this simmer for six minutes and then you're going to stir it occasionally, every once in a while, just to make sure that the milk doesn't boil over or stick to the bottom of the pan. So it's been six minutes since we added the sugar. So now we're gonna add our pistachios. So this is roasted, unsalted pistachios that I'm adding. And now we're going to stir that in and then let it continue simmering, stirring occasionally for another 10 minutes. I know it's like a long, long process, but I promise you, the end result is 100% worth it. So it's been about 10 minutes and our milk mixture, our kulfi mixture, is nice and thick and creamy. So we're gonna remove this from the heat and we're gonna now let this completely cool. So let me show you a quick trick on how to get it to cool faster. Here I have a bowl of ice water, and I'm going to basically put my pan full of my kulfi mixture over the ice water and stir until it's at least room temperature. So the reason why you want that is because as it cools, more water is gonna evaporate off and you want it to be completely cool so they don't get icy or ice crystals in your kulfi. Pretty much every step in this recipe is to make sure that you have a creamy kulfi and that it is not icy, 'cause that is not good eats. And this usually takes about three to four minutes. This is now completely cool. And you can see how thick it finally has gotten. It's running off the spatular really slow, and I can run my finger through it. And it leaves a little empty space. So that is the texture we are looking for. Now we can fill our ice pop molds. So right here, I have a silicone ice pop mold, and I like to just use a measuring cup to fill them. And what I'm gonna do is fill each mold until it's almost to the top. It's gonna be a little messy. That's okay. It's expected. It doesn't really expand all that much in the freezer. So you don't have to worry too much about overflow. So now that our ice pop mold is all filled, I'm going to cover it. If your mold doesn't have a cover, that's fine, mine does. And I'm going to lay this flat in my freezer for at least five hours to freeze completely. Here are a couple of the kulfis that I froze earlier. And as you can see, they're super solid, but super soft and creamy and delicious. You get this delicious, sweet milk flavor on top of the nutty pistachios and just a hint of cardamom. And it's so delicious, so rich. Indian kulfi is super delicious, ridiculously easy to make, a little bit time consuming, but 100% worth it. (soft music) (mouse clicking)

Cardamom Pistachio Kulfi (Pista Kulfi)

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