Rasmalai

Anything or everything out of Indian cottage cheese is my all time favorite. One of my favorites among Indian desserts is this soft and spongy melt in mouth delicacy called Rasmalai.

It wasn't an easy task as it was my first try for rasmalai. Rasgulla, sibling of rasmalai 😉 I had prepared earlier, that too I have had some flops in one or two tries. Anything that needs chena which is prepared by breaking the milk is considered to be luxurious as to prepare them in good number we must be spending few liters of milk. And to be very honest patience is something that we need to have as well. I would say we learn the art of patience in the process of rasmalai making. But it is worth the effort. Eventually it is a home made delicious dessert that is the end product you get.
I had tried it around 2 months back when we had guests over a weekend. That day it turned out so

well that I decided to jot down as how I did and also wanted to repeat this creation again to assure that what I learnt is to be practiced to be very much sure that my further attempts would also be as fruitful as they were during my first trial. I  hence decided to do this during my vacation at my mom's place and I am pretty much sure that they too loved it. Let's get started

Ingredients: ( makes 24 rasmalai )
Full fat milk - 3.5 liters  (Here we get 3.8 % fat milk, I used them)
White vinegar - 3-4 tsp diluted in equal amount of water or same amount of lemon juice diluted in water could be used.
Saffron/Kesar - 20-25 strands
Water - 400ml
Sugar - 350gms
Pistachios - 15 chopped
Almonds - 10-15 chopped
Rosewater essence - 1 tsp.
Cardamom pods - 3 pods opened and the seeds are to be pound.

Recipe:

• Firstly make paneer/chena by boiling 2 liters of milk. Then once it reaches the boil, add the diluted vinegar to it and let it curdle. Once the curdling is complete, using a muslin cloth just filter the whey out and hold on the curdled milk/chena or paneer in a colander, add cold water and remove the sourness of vinegar or lemon juice. Squeeze the excess water content. Allow it to stand in a colander for a while till the moisture is reduced to a considerable extent that it could be used further. It is called soft paneer (stage in which you can mash it up to form a dough like texture) To see how it looks like follow the link
• Now boil the remaining 1.5 liters and add 250 gms sugar, saffron to it and then reduce the boiled milk to half its amount by slowly cooking further on a low flame. 
• Once reduced add, pound cardamom, chopped pistachios and almonds, rose water essence and simmer it for 5 mins and then allow it to cool down.

• On a cleaned platform, put the paneer/soft paneer/chena which was standing for a while in colander an work on it, similar to how you work on the dough. The working/kneading process is similar to that we involve while making rasgullas. So the following link gives you an idea as how the kneading of paneer should be done. Idea behind a delicious soft rasmalai is how good you have kneaded your paneer.
• Keep a cooking pot on fire filled with around 400ml of water. Add the remaining sugar of around 100gms. Allow it to come to a rolling boil.
• Once done start pinching out a small ball out of the well kneaded paneer and flatten it out to a small disc shape. Take care that no big cracks are visible in the discs that you created.
• Once around 12 about half of the amount is ready, put them into the rolling boiling sugar water.

• Cover and cook for around 6 to 8 mins. In the meantime prepare the remaining 12 discs.
• Now open the covered pot and slightly turn over the discs so that even the other side is well cooked. Let them again cook for 4 to 5 mins. Then remove them and squeeze out the water content in the cooked discs and transfer them to the reduced milk mixture that was allowed to cool earlier.

• Now again add the remaining discs that you prepared to the same sugar solution that continues to boil. Cook them too the same way and transfer to the reduced milk mixture as described in above 2 steps. Refrigerate for around 4-6 hours minimum or more and enjoy this melt in mouth delicacy.

This is how it was when I tried at my mom's last month folowing same measurements.

👇

Notes:

• Do not escape the kneading process of the paneer. It is very important. Do it religiously and patiently for around 20 mins. Only then the discs are crack free. Else the texture wont be smooth rather grainy.
• Also cook the discs either in a pressure cooker or in a cooking pot with rolling boiling sugar and water solution. Else the discs that you created will disintegrate in the sugar solution.
• Do not overcrowd while cooking the discs in the boiling sugar solution. As the discs double up in size during the cooking process and they need room to expand.

Enjoy the dish! n don't forget Eat and Eat little MORE.. :)