
Charus Kitchen

Rasgulla
Ingredients:
For Chenna Paneer
1 lit of milk (fat milk)
Few spoons of lime juice or citric acid (To curdle milk)
For Sugar syrup:
2 and 1/4 cups of sugar
About 5 cups of water
Few Cardamons crushed
Few drops of Rose Essence(Optional)
For making Rasgullas
Chenna Paneer
1/2 to 1 tsp of Sooji/rawa/semolina
A pinch of baking powder
Special Utensils:
Pressure cooker(Makes life easy) or else any wide, thick bottomed pan.
Procedure:
1. For making chenna, first boil the milk in thick bottomed pan.
2. When it reaches boiling point, lower the flame and slowly add few spoons of lemon juice . Keep stirring and if needed add few more drops of juice until the milk curdles properly and whey is separated. Strain through Muslin cloth
3. Run cold water over the separated paneer (To get rid off, that Lemony/citrus flavor from Paneer). Squeeze out excess water, and hang the cloth for 5-8 minutes to completely separate the whey from paneer.But do not let it rest more than 20 minutes.
4. Now knead this chenna paneer along with 1/2 tsp of semolina and a pinch of baking powder, for 5-8 minutes till a very smooth dough is obtained, that is easily rolled into a ball without any cracks on surface.
5. Pinch very small piece of this dough and roll it into small, smooth ball. Remember to make balls of very small size as they tend to swell up, more than double of their original size after being cooked in syrup. Repeat the procedure till all the dough is used up.
6. In the meantime, take a pressure cooker (or any thick bottomed vessel) and add sugar and water along with crushed cardamoms and let it boil till sugar dissolves.
7. Carefully drop all the chenna paneer balls in the boiling syrup and close the lid of pressure cooker (or cover it with a lid if making in open vessel)
8. Wait for 1 whistle (or boil for 20-25 minutes in open vessel). Lower the flame and cook for 1-2 minutes more.
9. Put off the flame and let the pressure release from cooker. Now you should have soft spongy, sweetened, double the original size of rasgulla.
10. At this stage you can add few drops of rose essence in syrup, though it's completely optional
11. Transfer the rasgullas along with the syrup into a bowl and let it cool till room temperature. Later, Refrigerate for 6-7 hours in same syrup and serve chilled.