Recipe: Strawberry Yoghurt Ice Cream

I'd bought some Mahabaleshwar strawberries the other day from GNB and they were lying in the fridge as husband wasn't feeling enticed enough to eat them. Then I saw Sanjana's Food Charm Giveaway Contest aka KO Rasoi’s ‘Wear Your Food’ competition which propelled me to create something with the strawberries (one of the charms on that bracelet).

Because of his current (temporary) diet restrictions, he has been trying really hard to avoid desserts, so I thought about creating a sweet suprise with strawberries that would be low on added sugar, zero refined flour and minimal cream/butter/fat.

Strawberry Yoghurt Ice Cream seemed the perfect answer to fit all 3.

An online search revealed that David Lebovitz's Recipe was the most adapted, so it seemed like a good starting point.

This was my first attempt at making ice cream, so I improvised a lot as I went along. So, not all the ingredients are visible in my first picture :)

Ingredients:
1/2 a kilo of strawberries cleaned and sliced (it doesn't matter if you feel like eating some as you go along, go ahead)
I saw recipes that called for cooking the strawberries before mashing them, but decided against using this extra step. I think it gave a fresher taste to the ice cream.
400gm jar of Nestle/Amul Dahi (yoghurt) - this is standard size
a few sliced pistachios
some honey
2-3 tsp sugar
2 tsp vodka (optional)

Preparation:
Slice the strawberries and toss them with the vodka and sugar.

(I almost added Absolut Peppar, in my hurry - wonder how that would have tasted?)
I would have avoided the sugar completely but the mass opinion seemed to be, that adding sugar to the berries made the end product redder. Something to do with oxidation I guess. But next time, I will use Stevia/Sugar Free, but only if the strawberries aren't sweet enough.
Hang the curd/yoghurt in a muslin cloth and let the whey drain out.
I did this both simultaneously and left them for 2 hours, occassionally tossing the strawberries.
At the end of 2 hours, the strawberries had reddenned from their previous pinkish tinge as seen below.

Puree the strawberries.
I used the hand held mixer for the whole process. But given the amount of liquid these strawberries manage to emanate, I may just pulverise them in a liquidiser next time, to save myself the splashing.
The liquid was a really deep red.

As I mentioned earlier, these weren't the freshest strawberries, so I ran the liquid through a sieve to take off the skins that hadn't completely disintegrated. You can see in the picture below, that I had a lot of stuff that needed to be taken out although I might have got a finer end product and less wastage, if I used the liquidiser.

If your strawberries are fresh you may not need this step.
If you hate the feel of seeds in your ice cream, then you will want to sieve the liquid through a slightly finer wire mesh.

Since I had already sieved the strawberry juices into another bowl, I decided to start with the hung curd and slowly add the juice to prevent major splashing.

As you can see, the hung curd is really thick, almost like cottage cheese. The more whey you remove from the yoghurt, the creamier will be the end product.
If your strawberries aren't too tart, you may like to add a squeeze of lemon juice to the mix.
Gradually add the strawberry juice and beat lightly till you have a creamy mixture, darkish pink in color.

If you have an icecream maker, this would be the time to use it.

I don't have an ice cream maker (yet) so I had to do the - take out of freezer every 30mins and whip again to break up icicles routine.
You can use an immerision blender, or old fashioned elbow grease and a whisk for this.
Since the water had been drained out of the yoghurt, I just did this twice. The second time I saw that there weren't too many icicles.
So at this stage (when no more whipping was in order) I added the sliced pistachios and gently folded them in
Then I added some honey and folded it in.
(This inspiration came from some honey in an ice cream I ate recently and I loved the texture of the frozen honey, plus this adds a bit of sweetness. Unfortunately, the honey I had, may not have been of very good quality because I saw it release a little water when I next took it out of the freezer. It did taste fab though)
The pistachios will powder if you whip them and you want the honey to remain in streaks, not blended into the ice cream.
You can even add some bits of fruit at this stage if you want a fresher feel in the ice cream.

Serve garnished with pistachios/honey/mint sprigs/strawberries.

Its slightly melted, because it took me awhile to get the picture, but if you look on the right half, you get an idea of the texture.

This recipe gave me roughly 1/2 a liter of ice cream. Will definitely double quantities next time. With the amount of time and effort needed, might as well make a big batch
This is an ideal way to use up leftover fruit (semi pulpy - berries, mangoes, kiwi), especially in the summers. And with the temperature here touching 40C, it is a very welcome treat any time of the day.

Equipment that may be of help: