One of the most popular Indian sweet made of homemade cottage cheese. These cottage cheese dumplings are fluffy and spongy, soaked in sugar syrup. With every bite you would have the sugar syrup oozing into your mouth.
“Ras” means juice and “gulla” means “round” or “ball”, describing round cheese balls soaked in soft juicy sugar. If you are not sure what Rasgullas are, then let me tell you, they are Cheeseeeee 😀 balls. For others who knows what is rasgulla, do you need any more introduction ? 😉 I don’t think so. It is originated in Orissa and was introduced to Bengal by a sweet seller (that’s the story I heard and I believe it J). Rasgullas were sold in small clay pots to keep them cooler but they don’t do it anymore as we have refrigerators everywhere. But still if you go to smaller towns in India, you would see that. I don’t remember my mom making them at home so I always believed that it was a tedious process. But the list of sweets she used to make when I come from school each day.. Uhhh!! I can never make them so quick and nice! But after making these Rasgullas at home, I always prefer them doing at home now. You need very few ingredients to make Rasgulla, but it takes some time to make it. It’s more preparation time than cooking time.
Some get frustrated because their Rasgullas break. Don’t worry, do not make it big in size, it will make it hard and not spongy. This was my second time trying Rasgullas, it did not let me down both times. So , you can also do it 😀 Confidence :D.I always make Rasmalai (another popular Indian dessert). That is my favorite. So I made Rasmalai, homemade paneer and Rasgullas on the same day as they all involve same process except the final steps.
Indians are known all over the world for their spicy food 😉 and sweets. And if you have visited India, you would be amazed to see the variety of sweets at a local sweet shop. You have so many sweets and snacks available all over the places. So, when I came here, I missed that snacks and sweets. Actually snacks more 😉 we have lots of desserts in Montreal 🙂 Montreal is known for their French cakes 😀 I should say!
The secret to make spongy Rasgullas is in the kneading of the cheese. It has to be kneaded really well until it is smooth and has a slightly “oil” feel. Diwali is around the corner. And it is Navrathri season. You should make them even if it is a normal day 😉 It will make the day special! 😀
- Ingredients:
- For Paneer:
- Milk – 6 cups
- Lemon Juice – 1⁄4 cup
- Sugar – 1 cup
- Ice cubes – 6
- For sugar syrup:
- Sugar – 1 cup
- Water – 6 cups
- Cardomon - 2
- For Paneer:
- Mix lemon juice in half a cup of warm water and keep aside.
- Add 5 cups milk to a large pan over medium high heat. Constantly stir the milk at regular intervals to make sure the milk does not stick to the bottom.
- When it is boiling nicely, add the lemon juice/water mixture to the boiling milk. The milk will curdle in about a minute and most of the milk protein coagulates into lumps leaving very thin, slight cloudy water behind. When the water is clear, stop curdling by adding ice.
- Drain out the liquid using a muslin cloth or any clean thin cloth. Guess what you have in the cloth? Its cottage cheese! Squeeze out the excess water and hang the cloth with paneer for about 30-40minutes.
- Now rub the cloth that contains the paneer with another cloth. This removes the remaining water and helps us form the dough. Now remove the paneer from the cloth, knead it and make smooth small balls. Press them to resemble a bulging nugget.
For sugar Syrup: - Boil 6 cups of water in a large bottom pot and add one cup of sugar to it. Once the sugar dissolves, take one cup from it in a separate vessel and keep it aside.
- Now add the paneer balls in the boiling water. Cover and cook for about 7 minutes.
- Take the paneer balls and add to the sugar syrup that you kept aside before.
- Let the water boil and reach a one thread consistency, or little thicker consitency. Thats the syrup!
- After ten minutes, squeeze it lightly, remove the water and add them to the syrup.
- Garnish with sliced almonds/pistachios.
Mouth watering dessert! Hi I have a event + giveaway on my blog this month do take a look http://shobskitchen.blogspot.in/2014/12/event-giveaway-announcement-2015.html
Thank u shobana! 🙂