Mamta's Kitchen - A Family Cookbook





Apricot Milk Pudding

Khubani ki Kheer

Mamta Gupta

Dessert Indian Sweet Vegan Vegetarian

This is a simple dish to make. I had some unexpected guests one day and did not have any fresh ingredients in the fridge to make a nice dessert. After a little head scratching, I used the dry apricots I keep for snacks, and fresh milk. The dish turned out to be quite nice and light. Use sweetener for diabetics.

Ingredients

  • 1 litre milk
  • 2 tsp. semolina
  • 200 gm. dry apricots*
  • 2 cups warm water to soak apricots.
  • A few strands of saffron
  • Sugar to taste, approximately 2-3 tbs., or use sweetener
  • 7-8 green pistachios
  • 5-6 almonds

Instructions

  1. Place apricots and 1-1 1/2 cups of warm water and leave to soak overnight or at least for a few hours. They usually absorb all the water and swell up.
  2. Soak almonds and pistachios in warm water for a few hours or microwave on full for 3 minutes. This will loosen their skin.
  3. Place apricots in a food processor with enough milk (1/2-1 cup) and almost puree, not too fine. Do not make a smooth puree. If you do not have a food processor, chop very finely with a sharp knife. Mash a little with the flat of the blade. Keep aside.
  4. Bring milk to boil and the simmer in a thick bottomed pan until reduced to half.
  5. While milk is boiling, remove skins off the almonds and pistachios and slice either with a sharp knife or with a garlic slicer. Garlic slicer is surprisingly efficient for slicing soaked nuts thinly. but keep one separate for slicing nuts.
  6. Dissolve semolina in 2 tbsp. water and add to the simmering milk, stir and cook for a few more minutes. This will thicken the milk.
  7. Add sugar and saffron, stir and turn the heat off.
  8. Allow the milk to cool to hand warm, add apricots and stir. If you add apricots to very hot milk or boil milk after adding apricots, milk may curdle. If it curdles anyway, do not panic, it still tastes very good and you can call it apricot and Paneer Kheer!
  9. Add half the nuts and mix. Transfer to a serving bowl.
  10. Garnish with remaining nuts, cover and chill in the fridge.
  11. Serve chilled.

Notes

  • Dry apricots sold in UK supermarkets are usually quite soft and easy to chop. If using dry apricots that are hard, you will definitely need to soak them in hot water overnight. Remove stones and then chop/grind.
  • For sugar free version, add artificial sweetener when the milk has cooled down, along with the apricots, at step 8.
This recipe was originally created Jan 25, 2003 and last updated Apr 28, 2024

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