Soft, sweet and spongy – rosogollas are the best offerings from my hometown Kolkata!
The wonderful time spent in Kolkata definitely needs some tribute. And what’s better than a pot full of spongy white rasogollas – the ubiquitous sweet which personifies Bengal and Bengalis. While staying in Bengal I never even thought of making Rasogollas at home and I doubt if anyone in Bengal think that even today… this is so commonly available in any sweet shop around the corner.
But being a Bangalorean for more than 3 years, my thought process has changed quite a bit. It’s not that Rasogollas are not available in Bangalore but when I thought of making them at home I somehow felt much closer to my hometown suddenly. Weird things do happen… isn’t it?
Anyways, let me come back to rasogolla-making. Yes, it is little time consuming and needs good amount of effort and patience. You may not turn out the best rasogollas at the first go, but if you love cooking and enjoy making everything from scratch like me then you won’t mind the effort. With practice and patience you will finally be rewarded with a bowl full of soft and spongy Bengali delicacies.
Rasogollas... My Tribute to Kolkata
Prep time
Cook time
Total time
Author: Priyanka
Cuisine: Indian
Serves: 20 -25 Pieces
Ingredients
- Full cream milk – 1 liter
- Lemon juice – 3 tbsp
- Sugar – 2 cups
- Water – 3 and ½ cups
- Cardamom powder – a pinch
- Almonds – for garnish, sliced
Instructions
- Heat the milk in a heavy bottomed pan so that it doesn’t stick while boiling. When it start to boil, simmer the flame, add the lemon juice and stir continuously.
- Keep heating further until the greenish whey water clearly separates. Put off the flame.
- Take a metal strainer lined with a cheese cloth and pour the curdled milk in it.
- Wash it well in running water to remove the lemony smell and sourness or any seeds.
- Then squeeze out the excess water gently and hang it for 30 minutes tying in the cheese cloth.
- After half an hour, take out the crumbled paneer in a bowl and knead this for 7-10 minutes gently to make it a soft and smooth dough. This kneading is very important to get soft and spongy rasogollas. The dough must be smooth at the end of kneading.
- Make smooth equal sized balls from the paneer dough. I made around 25 balls.
- Now take the sugar, cardamom powder and water in a pressure cooker and boil it.
- After the sugar dissolves completely and the syrup boils, add the paneer balls carefully one by one keeping the flame on high.
- Cover the pressure cooker and cook it under pressure till you get one whistle in low flame. After a whistle, simmer and keep for another 5 minutes.
- Put off the flame and let the pressure release by itself. Then open the lid to see the rasogollas – by now it would have doubled in size.
- Cool down and refrigerate. Serve chilled garnished with sliced almonds.
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