Rasmalai - ICC

I can eat bucketfuls of this, and yet ask for more...name it!

No....Any food is technically not the right answer..

But Rasmalai is.

I love these milky desserts and thoroughly enjoyed making them for Srivallis ICC.

So here goes a detailed fool proof way to make these Bengali sweets

Ingredients:

• Milk - 3 litres (2 litres for making paneer and 1 litre for making Rasa/Milk syrup.)
• Vinegar- 3 tbsps
• Water-5 cup's
• Sugar- 16 tbsp (8 for Sugar Syrup and 8 for Rasa/Milk Syrup)
• Saffron- 8 pieces
• Pista-10 finely chopped
• Maida flour- 1 tsp
• Cardamon-2 (crushed)

Method:

I. Preparation of Whey Water
II. Preparation of Paneer
III. Preparation of Sugar Syrup
IV. Preparation of Milk Syrup/Rasa

Now comes the process in detail..

I. Preparation of Whey Water:

Boil Two Litres of milk and let it cool. Refrigerate the milk for 12 hours. The next day or after 12 hours, remove the thick layer of skin/ paal adai/meegada formed over the milk. Now boil the milk, when the milk boils, add vinegar. wait for a minute or two. the paneer will start floating on top and the whey water will stay on the bottom of the vessel. Now with a muslin or a cotton cloth, filter the paneer and pour 2 cups of water on it, to remove the sourness of vinegar and then tie it well and let it hang on for one hour, till the whey water drops out.

What to do with the Whey Water?
Let the whey water get soured. that is leave it for a time of 1 week to get soured. after that pour it into a bottle and refrigerate it. this soured whey water will be good for one year of time. when you want to make paneer, you can use this whey water instead of vinegar/lemon juice.
(or)
Whey water can be used to prepare chapathi or Roti, which makes them super soft.

II. Preparation of Paneer:
This is an important step.
As we have tied and hanged the paneer in muslin cloth to let out the whey water, wait for atleast an hour and squeeze them very well. well. remove from the cloth and shift to a broad vessel. Now just prepare the paneer, as we knead the dough for chapathi/roti, in the same way knead the paneer, for 5 minutes atleast, till you feel it dont have much moisture content in it. now add a spoon(not more) of maida flour to the paneer and make it as small small ball's remember the balls will become double in size after putting it and boiling it in sugar syrup. so make a medium size paneer ball's. with 2 litres of milk you can prepare 12 or 13 paneer ball's.
You may even use this to make Rasgullas.

III. Preparation of Sugar Syrup:
In a wide-bottomed pressure cooker, add two cups of water and eight table spoons of sugar. let it boil. Now when it boils, add the paneer ball's one by one on to it. dont afraid of the ball's getting broken. if you have kneaded the paneer well, it wont get broked. let it get pressure cooked for 10 minutes in slow flame or for 2 whistles.
Now let the steam get out and open the cooker and see the double-sized paneer ball's. slightly press all the paneer balls to emit the excess sugar syrup.

IV. Preparation of Milk Syrup/Rasa:
Even before you start to prepare the sugar syrup start making milk syrup/rasa side by side. Have one litre of milk in a wide bottomed vessel and let it boil and get reduced into half of the quantity.This might take awhile. Now add eight table spoons of sugar and mix well. add saffron and crushed cardamon to it and mix well. put the paneer ball's into the rasa/milk syrup. cool it down and refrigerate it.
Serve with chopped pistachios on top.

The recipe was from Lavis blog.