I seriously must waft about this world with blinkers on. How is it that only just last weekend I discovered something called a kiwi berry? Perhaps because lately I’ve been zoning in on cheeses and, er, dumplings that I briefly forgot there were other options within my reach.

There we were at Harris Farm Markets in the Cross comparing prices on blueberries to the ones at the Saturday market by the fountain (not me as I was more interested in the gloriously obese figs calling my name and bringing back memories of scavenging in the south of France) when I looked down and found punnets of these curious hobbit-sized kiwis. Within moments I was thinking of what I could do with them and decided to revisit an easy Indian dessert I played with once before.

The kiwi berry has a few names – hardy kiwi, cocktail kiwi, dessert kiwi – and is a cousin of the traditional kiwi. It’s the size of a grape, doesn’t have the same fuzz as its cousin and it doesn’t have to be peeled. There are about fifty varieties and each one of them has its own shape, size, colour and flavour. Considered a super-fruit, it’s dense in antioxidants and nutrients and contains the same amount of Vitamin E as an avocado and almost five times the Vitamin C as an orange.

When it comes to the taste, it’s like a cross between a regular kiwi fruit and a star fruit. Soft, sweet, and a little sour. Here I’ve paired this berry with an Indian yoghurt dessert called shrikhand. Yoghurt that has been strained of its liquid and mixed with aromatics like cardamom and rose water.

kiwi berries with shrikhand

Serves 4

• 500 g Greek yoghurt
• ½ cup caster sugar
• 1 tsp rose water
• ½ tsp ground cardamom
• a few threads of saffron
• 1 tbsp milk, tepid
• kiwi berries
• 4 tsp pistachio’s, chopped roughly

Strain the yoghurt in muslin or in a fine sieve overnight.

Rub the saffron into the milk until dissolved.

Mix cardamom into the yoghurt, add the rose water and saffron milk and 2 tablespoons of the chopped pistachio’s.

Tagged as: Dessert, Indian, Kiwi Berries, Labne