Thursday, May 6, 2010

Rasgulla

It is customary to many Hindu traditions to have something sweet on auspicious occasions and festivals. So, I thought of beginning my blog with a very popular sweet from India - the Rasgulla, which has it's origin from the holy land of Puri Jagannath in Odisha. The dish has been the traditional offering to the Hindu goddess, Lakshmi, the consort of the Puri temple's main deity,Lord Jagannath.

Rasgulla are fresh cottage cheese (paneer) dumplings in sugar syrup.
Preparation Time - 30 minutes
Ingredients
(Makes approx 15 mid size rasgullas)
Milk 1/2 Gallon or 2 litres approximately
Sugar - 1 Cup
Cardamom -3
Vinegar - 2 tbsp
Method of Preparation
1 Bring milk to a boil and pour 2 tbsp of vinegar to it. Wait till the milk curdles and becomes cheese.
2 Shift this cottage cheese into a mushlin cloth or a soft cotton cloth and drain the water.
3 Keep the cheese in the muslin cloth under cold running water. This will remove the smell of vinegar from the cheese and also cool it down. Now sqeeze out all water from the cheese.
4 Remove this cheese to a dish and kned the cheese for 10 to 15 mnts to make it a soft dough.
5 Now divide the cheese into equal halfs and roll them between your palms to make small smooth balls. Once you prepare all the balls of cheese keep it aside.
6 Now take three cups of water in a pressure cooker and mix one cup of sugar in it. Crush the cardamom and put it into the sugar syrup. Stir it so that it dissolves and bring the solution to a medium boil. Now slowly put the cheese balls into the sugar syrup and close the pressure cooker with the lid. Keep it on medium heat for 5 -7 minutes. Remove from flame and open the cooker when cooled. (Ensure that you remove it before the first whistle comes).
Remove it to a dish and serve cool.
Notes
Make sure that all the water is properly drained, else it may break the Rasgulla. Also make sure you do not over boil them in the sugar syrup or they may turn out hard.
Variations
For flavour of the sugar syrup youmay use saffron or rose water.
Other Names
Cottage Cheese, Chhena , Home made Paneer


3 comments:

Unknown said...

Will definitely try this out

Anonymous said...

wow u made rasgullas so easy by putting the recipes in such a simple form

Anonymous said...

Great recipe. I tried making rasgollas for the first time with this recipe. Turned out to be good.

Post a Comment