Rasgulla recipe: delicious homemade treat during the lockdown

During the lockdown all days of the week may look same. So why not to make at least one of these days a little different and treat yourself and your family with delicious home-made rasgulla. Thanks God, milk shops are still open and unlike masks, milk is not swept off the market. However, nowadays many people try to store more milk at home than before. Sometimes it spoils but do not hurry to dispose it. You can utilise it to make a famous Indian sweet – rasgulla.

Ingredients

• full cream milk – 1.5 liter (if it is spoiled to the condition of yogurt use it as it is, otherwise follow our instructions in the preparation steps);
• water – 4 cups;
• sugar – 1.5  cup
• corn powder – 2 teaspoons
• rose water – 0.5 teaspoon (optional)
• cardamon (elaichi) – 2-3 pieces.

Preparation steps

Milk

Rasgullar requires a special milk condition in a form of cottage cheese (soft paneer). You may take time to make cottage cheese (soft  paneer) out of milk or if you do not want to wait you can artificially fasten the process.

Natural cottage cheese (soft paneer) (12-24 hours) recipe

1. Pour unboiled milk in a glass.
2. Leave in a dark place at the temperature of at least 26°C for 12 hours.
3. When milk turns into curd (becomes thik) and kind of cracks appear in its mass, it is time to  separate cottage cheese from liquid. For that see step #4.
4. Take a steel pot with a thick bottom, fill it with water and place your glass with spoiled milk in the water. The water should not come inside the glass but the level of the water should reach the glass’s neck.
5. Boil water and keep everything on medium flame untill you see the whey separating from the cottage cheese.
6. When the level of the whey reaches 2 cm in height from the top of the glass, turn off the gas and let it cool.
7. To completely separate whey* from the cottage cheese**, use a seive or buttercloth (or cheesecloth).

*Whey is very useful for health, so you can drink it. Add some sugar if you don’t like the original whey taste.
**Try this recipe to treat yourself with tasty Russian curd croquettes – ‘syrniki‘.

Fast way to turn milk into cottage cheese (soft paneer) (- not recommended)

1. Heat milk in a pot.
2. When it is boiled add 1-2 teaspoons of lemon juice and stir.
3. When you see that curd particles are formed use a buttercloth (or cheesecloth) to separate cottage cheese from whey.

Rasgulla mixure

Cottage cheese (soft paneer) should be completely drained from the whey. So keep calm while the process is on. It may take 1-2 hours.

1. Knead the cottage cheese with your hands for about 5-10 minutes.
2. While kneading add corn powder and mixit well in the cottage cheese.
3. Form small balls (1-1.5 cm in diametre) keeping in mind that in future when you boil them, they will increase in size 2-3 times.

Rasgulla sugar syrup

1. Fill a pot with water and turn on the gas.
2. Add sugar and mix it so it gets melted.
3. Add cardamon and rose water (optional) in the water.
4. When sugar is completely dissolved put cottage cheese balls in the water and close the pot with a lid.
5. Bring it all to the boil and keep boiling for 15 minutes.
6. Turn of the gas and cool your home-made rasgulla.

Serve cold in the syrup. Enjoy!

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