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Friday, December 30, 2011

Nolen Gurer Sondesh/Sandesh With Ricotta Cheese

IMG_0215

My food scout came back and reported to me of his finding of some great home made Sondesh at his office. It was made by his colleague’s husband Somnath and he apparently used Ricotta cheese instead of chhena. It made a lot of sense to me because Ricotta is very much like chhena with the added advantage that you don’t have to work hard to get all the water out of chhena while making sandesh (a process call jaak).

So I sent my scout back to get the recipe, which he did. I cycled through the process couple of times and here is my adaptation of that recipe.

Ingredients

  1. 4 cups ricotta cheese
  2. 2 cups heavy cream
  3. 1 can sweetened condensed milk
  4. Sugar ( quantity depends according to your sweet tooth)
  5. 6 tbsp. of notun guur (date palm jaggery)
  6. 1 tsp. cardamom powder
  7. Ghee (clarified butter). Optional

Procedure

IMG_0201In a mixing bowl, mix together all ingredients other than jaggery and cardamom powder. Mix them really well to make a smooth batter.

Microwave it for about 6 mins, stirring once or twice in between. Then transfer the batter to a nonstick pan and stir till the mixture thickens to the consistency shown in the photograph. The mixture will not stick to the bottom of the pan instead it will form a lump together.

Sprinkle cardamom powder and add jaggery to it. Cook on very low flame for one more min. This intermediate form is called Makha Sondesh and is sold as it is. You might want to keep some of it aside and claim you made two types of sondesh.

Allow it to cool down a little so that you can touch it. If you have a mould then grease it with ghee (clarified butter) now. Take a small portion of the mixture and press it down on the mould with a wet hand, smooth the edges and carefully take it out. If you don't want to use moulds, you can use your hands and fingers to shape them as you like. I used the stone mould which my grandma passed down to me (in the picture below).

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Let the sondesh to cool down. They will harden once cooled.IMG_0217

11 comments:

Home Cooked food said...

Will try it soon.
Http://realhomecookedfood.blogspot.com

Yogi said...

Hello,

I have been living in Atlanta for close to four years and have been craving Kolkatar nolen gurer sondesh for a long time .. so i figured if i cant buy it i'll just have to make it.

I followed your recipe and my oh my it turned out nearly as good as the ones from kolkata. Thank you so much for sharing the recipe. I love your blog :D

Somtapa Brahmachari said...

@Yogi,thanks for liking it. If you can substiture ricotta cheese with home made paneer(Chaana), you will get the exact taste of Nolen gurer Sondesh.

Unknown said...

Hi,
I am very impressed with your food blog and I have recently turned from a very busy corporate girl to a stay at home love to cook wife because of my husbands job transfer!
I always wanted to make nolen gur sandesh but now that I have a chance I dont have nolen gur! Can I substitute it the normal gur that we get at the indian stores?

Somtapa Brahmachari said...

@Sangita, sorry for my late reply. If you use the normal gur available at Indian grocery store you won't get the flavor of nolen gur. On top of it those gur contain a bit of salt which will make the Sondesh salty.

Somtapa Brahmachari said...

@Sangita, sorry for my late reply. If you use the normal gur available at Indian grocery store you won't get the flavor of nolen gur. On top of it those gur contain a bit of salt which will make the Sondesh salty.

Anonymous said...

Nice receipe , worked out really well, just skipped the cardamom as i felt the flavour of cardamom will overpower the jaggery flavour

Anonymous said...

Hi, I don't have access to date palm jaggery where I live, would I get the same taste if I use palm sugar instead? Thanks.

Somtapa Brahmachari said...

I have never tried palm sugar.. You can definitely tryout and let me know how it goes..

Unknown said...

Hello - how many sondesh does this recipe yields, using the size of mould you have used (shown in the picture)?

Somtapa Brahmachari said...

@Mitali, about 30 pieces..