What is required here is not a cream that one can go out and buy. This “cream” is really a kind of pudding or kheer, thickened by boiling milk down, not by adding starch to it. In order to take some of the labor out of the process, Indians have taken to adding condensed milk. This works very well indeed. This is a thinnish cream, ideal to serve with fruit. I put the cut-up fruit (mangoes, guavas, pears, peaches, and bananas are ideal, but I have used berries as well) in individual bowls, or in old-fashioned ice cream cups, and then pour the flavored cream over the top.

Ingredients

　　4 cups whole milk

　　6 cardamom pods

　　1/4 cup sugar

　　1/2 cup sweetened condensed milk

　　Bring the milk to a boil over medium or medium-low heat in a very heavy, wide pan, deep enough to let the milk rise a bit without boiling over. Stir as the milk heats. (I prefer to heat up my milk in a microwave oven and just pour it into the pan to speed up matters.) As soon as the milk starts bubbling, add the cardamom pods and stir. Adjust the heat, generally to medium low, so the milk simmers steadily without boiling over or catching at the bottom. Cook this way, stirring now and then, for about 25 minutes. Stir in any skin that forms. (It tastes very good when cold.) Add the sugar and condensed milk. Stir and cook another 10 minutes. Remove cardamom pods, cover, and cool in the refrigerator.

　　Excerpted from At Home with Madhur Jaffrey: Simple, Delectable Dishes from India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Sri Lanka by Madhur Jaffrey. Copyright © 2010 by Random House. Excerpted by permission of Alfred A. Knopf, a division of Random House LLC. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.Buy the full book from Amazon.