Indori shikanji at home: the thick milk version, and which dry fruits go in

Visitors from other cities are usually surprised by the name. Anyone who grew up in Indore is surprised that the rest of the country thinks shikanji means nimbu paani.

What Indori shikanji actually is

The drink sits somewhere between a rich milkshake and a pourable rabdi. It is sweet, cold, slow to drink, and has enough nuts in it that you notice them in every sip. Sarafa, the lane known for jewellery by day and food by night, is where many visitors go looking for it.

Every maker has their own recipe, and we will not pretend to know any shop’s version. What follows is a home recipe that gets the thickness and the dry fruit balance right. Treat the flavourings as a starting point and adjust them to the shikanji you remember.

The dry fruits, and how much

For 1 litre of full-cream milk, which makes four to five glasses once reduced:

A few notes on those choices:

• Pista: ready-cut Pista Katran saves you twenty minutes with a knife and gives thin, green slivers that float. Our guide to pista kernels, katran and pishori explains the difference.
• Badam: Badam Katran is already sliced. If you would rather slice your own, soaked Regular Badam peels easily and slices cleanly.
• Charoli: Charoli is small, soft and slightly nutty, and it is what makes a milk drink taste like a mithai shop rather than a kitchen. It is expensive by the kilo, but you use a teaspoon at a time.
• Kaju: broken kaju is ideal here, because it gets chopped anyway.

How to make it at home

1. Bring 1 litre of full-cream milk to the boil in a heavy, wide pan. Wide means faster reduction.
2. Lower the heat and simmer, stirring often and scraping the sides back in, until the milk is down to a little over half. This takes 30 to 40 minutes.
3. Add 80 to 100 g of sugar and stir until it dissolves. Add a few strands of saffron, if you use it, soaked in warm milk.
4. Stir in the crushed elaichi, the pinch of jaifal, and most of the chopped dry fruits. Keep a spoonful back for the top.
5. Cool completely, then refrigerate for at least three hours. It thickens further as it chills.
6. Before serving, whisk hard or blend for a few seconds so it is smooth and pourable. Pour into glasses and scatter the remaining nuts on top.

If it sets too thick in the fridge, whisk in a few spoons of cold milk. If it is too thin, you stopped reducing too early, and the fix is simply more time on the stove next batch.

Shortcuts, and where they fall short

Some home cooks start with condensed milk or khoya to skip the long simmer. It works, and it is sweeter. The flavour is flatter, though, because the caramel notes of slowly reduced milk are what carry the elaichi and nuts. If you use a shortcut, cut back on sugar and add the dry fruits exactly as above.

We keep the dry fruits and spices, not the milk, sugar or saffron, so buy those with your groceries.

Buying the dry fruits for a party

Shikanji is a crowd drink, often made in large pots for guests. For 5 litres of milk you need roughly 75 g each of badam and kaju, 50 g of pista, a heaped tablespoon or two of charoli and about 20 elaichi pods.

A 100 g pack each of Pista Katran, Badam Katran and Charoli, with broken kaju and elaichi from our spices shelf, covers most parties. For current rates, look at dry fruit prices in Indore today. Parcels reach the city in about 2 to 4 days, and delivery is free on orders over ₹1,000.

Questions people ask