Ingredients:
For chenna/paneer
6 cups milk (I used whole milk)
1-2 tbl spns lemon juice
For syrup:
1 cup sugar
2 and 1/2 cups water
1/4 tea spn cardamom powder
Method:
Heat milk in a heavy bottomed pan. When it is hot, add the lemon juice. Mix with a spoon and cook for a few minutes till the milk separates.
Rasgulla are cheese balls (size of a golf ball) immersed in a flavored syrup associated with Bengal
Rasgulla was created in Puri, a temple town in Orissa. The dish was later introduced in Calcutta. Most of us mistakenly believe it to be native dish of West Bengal. Rasgulla is national sweet of India. This is a native dish of Bengal. Before I get into a recipe.
To make colored Rasgulla, do NOT add food color to the milk. Add desired food color while whipping cheese. When you work Maida in, the color will automatically bleed in to Maida. Normal colors of choice are yellow and pink.
Ingredients of Rasgulla
For chenna/paneer
6 cups milk (I used whole milk)
1-2 tbl spns lemon juice
For syrup:
1 cup sugar
2 and 1/2 cups water
1/4 tea spn cardamom powder
Method of Rasgulla
Heat milk in a heavy bottomed pan. When it is hot, add the lemon juice. Mix with a spoon and cook for a few minutes till the milk separates.
Sieve it through a clean cloth. Tie the towel in a pouch and squeeze it to remove any extra water. Hang the towel for about 30mins allowing all the water to fall down. Now the paneer/chenna is ready.
Take it on a plate and knead it very well to remove any chunks. This is very important to get good quality rasgullas. Now make small balls (of peda size), remember, when they are cooked, they increase in volume, so don’t make them too big. It is quite difficult to make these as they break very easily. So apply a bit of pressure to hold them together. Try to give them as smooth surface as possible.
In a big vessel, heat sugar and water. When the sugar is dissolved and syrup comes to boil, slowly add the balls. Remember they increase in size by 2-3 times. So make sure to use big enough vessel to hold them easily.
Now, bring down the heat to medium and close the lid (I made up this step. I didn’t want to cook them in cooker as mentioned in some of the links I saw, I felt by this way, I could take them off heat once they are cooked). Let it cook for about 25mins or until they are cooked. They are cooked when they have considerably increased in size. Take one rasgulla out and slightly apply pressure, if it comes back to original shape, it is cooked.
Add the cardamom powder and take off the heat. Serve them chilled.