Malai Chum - chum

This recipe took a long time to get published as I just didn’t get time over the holidays. A lot of friends has been asking me for it and finally it’s here. Sorry for the delay. I made this over Diwali for my Husband’s office Diwali get-together. Indian folks in his office were supposed to bring in a dish each, I decided to go with traditional Bengali sweets which is famous across India. I chose Malai chumchum as it is popular for its mild sweetness and silky soft texture.

Ingredients For Chaana

1. 8 cups whole milk
2. 1tsp. saffron
3. 1/2 cup vinegar diluted in 1/2 cup water

Ingredients For Sugar syrup

1. 4cups of sugar
2. 10 cups of water

Procedure Of Making Chaana

In a heavy bottom pan take the milk and bring it to a boil. Optionally you can use saffron in the milk to give the chum chum a rich color, or omit it for clear white chum chums. If you choose to use saffron you will see within few minutes it will start releasing its color. Once it starts boiling reduce the heat and slowly pour diluted vinegar to it while stirring the milk.

Soon the milk will start curdling. It means the milk solids will be separated from the watery whey.Now strain the milk mixture on a colander lined by a cheese cloth.

Rinse the milk solids with fresh running water to remove any residual acidity.

Wrap the cheesecloth around itself to squeeze out moisture from the chaana (paneer).

Now tie the muslin cloth from the faucet of your kitchen sink for 3-4hrs to drain out the last drop of whey.

Take chaana out of the cheese cloth and knead it with gentle pressure to make a soft dough.

Now take small balls out of it and roll them in elongated shape. Flatten each of them by putting them in between your palms. Keep them on a clean plate.

Take a wide sauce pan and dissolve sugar into the water. Bring it to a boil on high heat.

When it starts boiling reduce the heat to medium and allow the syrup to simmer for another 5 – 6 minutes.

Remove the lid and gently release chum chums in batches; into it. Chum chum will expand when it is cooked, so keep enough room for their expansion.

Cook them covered on medium heat for 15 minutes and then turn them over. Cook for another 5 minutes and then remove them with a slotted spoon.

Arrange them on a plate and allow them to cool in a refrigerator for 30 minutes.

By this time prepare malai for chum chums.

Ingredients for malai

1. 1 cup whole milk
2. 1 cup heavy cream
3. 2tsp. sugar
4. Crushed pistachio for garnishing
5. Optional saffron

Procedure of making Malai

In a heavy bottom pan mix together milk, heavy cream and sugar. Optionally add saffron. Now let it boil on medium heat. Stir continuously to avoid scalding.

Soon you will see it starts getting thick. Cook for some more time till it gets a spread like consistency.

Take out the chum chums from refrigerator and either using a flat knife or using pastry bag with malai filling spread the warm malai on the top surface of chum chums. Let it soak for a minute, then apply the 2nd layer. Sprinkle crushed pistachio and saffron over them to garnish.

Purir Goja

 

Updated with new photo

Vacation to a lot of Bongs meant visit to Puri, a beach city in the state of Orissa in India. For one of my maasi (aunts) vacation “always” meant visit to Puri. She used to go there every year for almost a decade. Even for me the first time I saw a sea was in Puri when I was 5 years old.

Once in Puri the evenings are generally spent on the beach of the Bay of Bengal. The mornings are scorching hot and hence people generally spend that in site-seeing in video-coaches (buses playing movies in a VCR). One of these must visits is the famous Jagannatha temple. People offer puja there and bring back prasad to Kolkata for their friends and families. The prasad is always the famous Puri’s Goja.

Goja is a crispy sweet. It is a kind of wheat and rice flour cracker dipped in sugar syrup. Making it is easy when you know the exact steps. Otherwise it is easy to mess up the layering process. It took me couple of attempts to get the perfect Goja.

Ingredients

1. 1/2 cup all purpose flour ( maida)
2. Rice flour: 1/2 cup + 2 tbsp
3. White oil (e.g. Sunflower or Cannola): 2 tbsp + oil for deep frying
4. 2 tbsp. ghee ( clarified butter)
5. 1 cup sugar
6. 1 cup water

Procedure

In a small bowl mix 2 tbsp of ghee and 2 tbsp of rice flour and keep aside for further use.

In a thick pan take water and sugar and boil on a medium heat till the sugar completely dissolves and the syrup reaches a medium thick or one string consistency. Keep the syrup warm. The consistency of the sugar syrup should be such that once they dry on the goja it should leave the goja glossy and not caked white.

Take equal portions of maida, rice flour and 2 tbsp of oil in a mixing bowl and mix them well. Knead the mixture into a stiff dough by gradually adding water to it. Keep it covered for half an hour. Knead it once more and you are all set to go.

Divide the dough into even number of portions (2,4,6,8) and roll out each portions into flat chapatti (roti) like discs. Take one chapatti and apply the rice flour and ghee mixture on one surface with the back of a spoon. Now take another rolled out chapatti and cover it. Start rolling up the joined chapattis starting  from one end to other.  Once you finish rolling up cut with a knife into equal sized portion. Take each of these portions and roll them flat by lightly pressing your rolling pin.

Here a step by step guide for you. Click on the images to see enlarged version.

		Goja Steps VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

Heat oil in a pan and deep fry till both sides takes a golden brown hue. This is the time when the layers in the Goja will separate out. Remove and drain out the excess oil on a paper towel and dip them into the sugar syrup. Keep them for about 3-4 mins. Take out and serve hot or cold

Shrikhand with Greek Yogurt

My dad has been known to suggest yogurt as the cure of everything from head-aches to leg sprain and everything in between. Given that he had worked his entire life in Dairy Development Authority in Kolkata, he is a “bit” biased. Today is his birthday. He is thousands of miles away and I cannot really make him anything for today, but still in his honor todays recipe is yoghurt based.

This desert is from Western India and I learned it from my Maharashtrian friend Sonali. It is made with strained yogurt and flavored with saffron and cardamom. Traditionally the yogurt is strained overnight to drain out the excess whey which makes this process little lengthy. I used fat free Greek yogurt because its already thickened.

Ingredient

• 5 cups of Greek yogurt or 7cups of plain yogurt
• 3 cups sugar (Quantity varies depending how sweet you want)
• A handful of almond and pistachio sliced
• 1 tsp. freshly ground cardamom powder
• 2 tbsp. warm milk
• 1 tsp. saffron strands

Procedure

In a bowl heat 2 tbsp. milk for 10 seconds. Add the saffron strands to it and set aside.

In a mixing bowl take the yogurt and add sugar, cardamom powder and saffron infused milk to it. Blend everything well with a hand or electric blender. It will make your desert super creamy.

Place this mixture in the refrigerator for 3- 4 hours to fuse the flavors together.

Serve in small glasses and garnish with chopped almonds and pistachios.

Note: If you are using plain yogurt follow these steps

Place a strainer lined with cheese cloth on a big bowl. Now pour yogurt in the strainer and keep it overnight in the refrigerator to drain out the whey.

It is important to keep the yogurt in the cool place so that it doesn’t turn sour.

Use the strained yogurt or shrikhand and you can either discard the whey or can use it for making buttermilk, kaadi or chapatti dough.

Sondesh / Sandesh

Wishing all my bong friends a sweet new year.

Till date my most read blog is Nolen Gurer Sondesh/Sandesh With Ricotta Cheese. That is an easier to make version of the famous Bengali sweet (as it uses the readily available Ricotta Cheese). Even though it comes out decent, it has a slight salty taste due to the cheese. In todays post I will cover “the original” bong Sondesh, made with your own hand made chana (cottage cheese).

Ingredients

• 4 cups whole milk
• 1tsp + 1pinch saffron
• 1cup granulated sugar
• 1/4 cup heavy cream 
• 1/4 cup white vinegar diluted in 1/2 cup water
• 10 pistachios crushed

Special Utensil

• Colander (or large strainer)
• Cheese cloth (clean white cotton cloth)
• Mould (optional)

Procedure Of Making Chaana

In a heavy bottom pan take the milk along with saffron and bring it to a boil. You will see within few minutes the saffron will start releasing its color. Once it starts boiling reduce the heat and slowly pour diluted vinegar to it while stirring the milk.

Soon the milk will start curdling. It means the milk solids will get separated from the watery whey.Now strain the milk mixture on a colander lined by a cheese cloth.

Rinse the milk solids with fresh running water to remove any residual acidity.

Wrap the cheesecloth around itself to squeeze out moisture from the chaana (paneer).

Now tie the muslin cloth from the faucet of your kitchen sink for 3-4 hours to drain out the last drop of whey.

Take chaana out of the cheese cloth and knead it with gentle pressure  to make it smooth and lump free. Take the chaana, sugar, cream and a pinch of saffron in a heavy bottom pan and cook on low heat. Stir continuously so that it doesn’t stick to the bottom of the pan.

Cook till it thickens and forms a lump together. Remove from heat and and let it sit down till the heat is tolerable to touch.

You can give them any shape you like by using your fingers or you can use readymade moulds.

Grease the mould with little ghee or butter. Sprinkle a pinch of crushed pistachio over it. Now take a small portion of the mixture and press it down on the mould. Smoothen the edges and carefully take it out.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Caramel Custard or Flan

When I first visited a Mexican restaurant, I ordered a desert called “flan” and to my pleasant surprise they served what I know as “caramel custard”, which was one of my favorite. My mom used to make it in the pressure cooker. My daughter loved it and so I frequently make it these days but I use the oven.

You can either make it in small individual ramekins to give it a nice shape or you can make it in a big baking dish, which is what I have done here.

Ingredients

1. 1 cup evaporated milk
2. 1/2 cup sweetened condensed milk
3. 1/4 cup heavy cream
4. 1/2 cup granulated sugar
5. 3 large eggs
6. 1tsp. vanilla extract

Procedure

Position rack in the entre of the oven and preheat to 350F.

In a sauce pan heat the sugar till it melts and turns golden brown. This is the caramel sauce. Quickly pour caramel into a oven proof baking pan and immediately tilt the pan to coat the base. In another mixing bowl whisk all the other ingredients without creating lots of foam. Pour the mixture through small sieve into the prepared baking pan.

Set the pan into a larger baking tray and pour enough hot water into the baking tray so that it comes halfway up the side. Bake until the center is set. This will take about 25 minutes.

Cool on a wire rack and then chill in the refrigerator till you serve.

Run a small knife around the custard to loosen. Place desert dish on top of the custard pan and holding tightly turn dish and pan upside down. Shake the pan gently to loosen custard. Caramel syrup will run down sides of custard forming a sauce.

Desert - 2012

In all the Winter madness I missed posting some of the 2012 collections of recipes. Here's some of the Bengali style deserts and sweets I made over 2012 and really enjoyed doing so. Hope you get some inspiration from the recipes and get into your own culinary adventure.

1. Pati Sapta
2. Doodh Puli
3. Bhapa Aam Doi
4. Misto Doi
5. Ras Malai
6. Mango Kheer
7. Malpua
8. Chaanar Payesh
9. Rosgulla

Chaanar Payesh

Let me start by wishing all my readers Subha Mahalaya.
Today is Mahalaya, which signifies the start of the fortnight long celebration of Durga Puja at our home. Mahalaya is very significant to Bongs. It marks the day, the schools close for Durga Puja. The roads are choked with gazillions of people putting in their final effort to close the pujo shopping. Frantic efforts to finish the extravagant pandals, lighting gets underway.
In our childhood the morning of Mahalaya used to start at four to listen to Mahisasuramardini on the All India Radio. In this digital age many of these customs are losing it’s meaning. You can now stream mahisasuramardini at your own convenience, at any place and time, like from this site. It’s hard for our kids to imagine the ritual of getting up so early in the morning just to listen to a radio program.
Like most households our home also got into festive mood on that day. Since it was a holiday for my mom, she made lots of great stuff for us. One of the regulars used to be Chanar Paayesh (Cottage Cheese Pudding). Here goes the recipe.

Ingredients

1. 1+1 liter full cream milk
2. 1/4th cup granulated sugar
3. 1/4th cup lemon juice or synthetic vinegar
4. 1/2 tsp. cardamom powder
5. Few pistachios and almond finely chopped

Procedure

In a heavy bottom pan take one liter of milk and bring it to a boil. When the milk rises to its surface slowly add lemon juice or vinegar to it and turn off the heat. Stir it well to mix. You will see the milk curdles and gets separated from the yellowish green whey.
Keep a strainer lined with a cheesecloth ready. Pour the curdled milk over it to strain the whey . You will see that the paneer or chana is collected in the cheesecloth. Pour one or two glasses of cold water over it to wash any residual sourness and the flavor of lemon out of it.
Tie the four corners of the cheesecloth and hang it from your water faucet for about half an hour.
In a separate thick bottom pan start boiling the rest of the milk and keep stirring continuously to avoid scalding. Lower the heat and let it cook for about half an hour. It will become a shade darker than its original milky white.
Add strained chaana or paneer to it and keep stirring to mix everything well. Let the paneer cook in the milk for 10 minutes. Add sugar and mix well. Taste and adjust accordingly. Remove from heat and sprinkle cardamom powder. Garnish with chopped pistachio and almonds.
Chill before you serve.

Eggless Mango Cake

My daughter’s school celebrates international cultural night every year. In her school there are 38 different native language speaking students. Representatives from these cultures setup booths and each student brings in a food item so that everyone gets to enjoy food from all across the world. It’s pretty amazing to walk down the hall and see their booths and then eat Mediterranean baklava, Indian bisi-bele-bath and Japanese sushi in one seating.

This year me and my friend Laxmi decided to make some fusion food. Coupling Mango into an eggless cake.

Ingredients

1. 1 cup semolina (sooji)
2. 1 cup sweetened mango pulp (canned or freshly made)
3. 1/2 cup granulated sugar
4. 1/4th cup unsalted butter at room temperature
5. 1tsp. baking powder
6. Golden raisins ( optional )

Procedure

Preheat oven at 350F.

In a bowl mix sooji with baking powder and keep aside.

Take a mixing bowl and mix butter and sugar till its creamy. Gradually add mango pulp to it and give a real good mix.

Now slowly add sooji mix to it and stir to combine. Sweetness of mango pulp varies with different brands, so it is better to check the sweetness and adjust at this point.

Grease a 9 inch baking pan and pour the cake mixture into it. Bake it in the oven for 20 minutes. Remove and allow it to cool on a wire rack.

Cut it into squares and serve. I didn’t put  raisins for my daughter’s school event keeping in mind that some students might have allergic reaction. But it really looks good when you decorate each square with golden raisin.

The same cake I made for a friend’s dinner party.

Bengali Mishti Doi (Sweetened Yoghurt)

If you live in East India there is very little incentive in making sweet yoghurt (misti doi) at home. Every place has a sweet shop selling it within a mile. Even in every other major Indian cities there are good Bengali sweet shops selling lal misti doi. However, being in US we aren’t so lucky. Misti doi which has been my favorite from childhood was sorely missed here. Notice the past tense in the previous sentence

This post relies on a lot of experimentation. My main target was to come up with an exact formulae with ingredients readily available in US which ensures minimal disappointment. Sounds technical, doesn’t it :)

Ingredients 

1. 350ml. or 1 can evaporated milk. I used a can I bought from FredMeyer
2. 175ml. or 1/2can sweetened condensed milk. Nestle or Milkmaid or any other brand  
3. 1cup plain greek yogurt 
   
   

Procedure

In a heavy bottom pan take evaporated milk and bring it to a boil. Immediately turn off the heat and slowly add sweetened condensed milk to it.

In a small bowl beat the greek yogurt with a fork to liquefy it. Check the temperature of the milk mixture before you add the yogurt to it. It should be lukewarm. 45C/115F is ideal to make the lactobacillus, the bacteria in the culture active. If you add yogurt when the temperature of the milk mixture is high, the lactobacillus will die and your effort will be in vain. You can use a kitchen thermometer to check the temperature. After adding yogurt to the mixture give it a nice stir. Pour the mixture into separate ramekins or serving bowl.

Preheat your oven at 150F/80C.  Now cover the ramekins with aluminum foil and place the ramekins inside the oven for two and half hours to set the yogurt. If the surrounding temperature is too low keep the oven light on. The warm oven will serve as a incubator.  Don't disturb the ramekins until the yogurt is completely set, otherwise it will break the structure. If you are in India you
can set it in a cool dry place in your kitchen as the kitchens are warm enough to set it. It takes 3 - 6 hrs for the mishti doi to set. Once set take it out and chill in the refrigerator.

It is very important to cool the yogurt into the refrigerator once it is set. This way your yogurt won't be too sour as the cool temperature of refrigerator will inactivate the bacteria.

Traditionally mishti doi is set and served in unglazed earthen pot. Earthen pots make the curd thicker and creamier by gradual evaporation through its porous body and also maintaining the optimal temperature for the growth of culture.

To make lal doi you need

The process above will give you misti doi, but it will still be white. If you want to exactly match the color from the sweet shops , you need to do an extra step at the beginning

Take the following ingredients.

1. 2tbsp of sugar
2. 1/3rd cup hot evaporated milk (take it from the evaporated milk you have boiled)

Heat 2 tbsp of sugar in a pan on low heat till sugar melts and takes a nice deep brown color. Add hot evaporated milk and stir vigorously to avoid formation of lump. Add it to milk mixture (after step 1 of the procedure on top, marked with ***).

Easy Ras Malai

We got invited to a pot-luck and being a Bengali was entrusted to make the desert. I had a bunch of rasgulla cans which I picked up from the local Indian grocery store. So I kind of cheated and quickly made rasmalai out of them.

Even in the US it’s pretty easy to find cans of Rasgulla or their smaller cousin Rasbhari. Amazon stocks them as well.

Ingredients

1. 1 can rasgulla / Rosogolla ( I used rasbhari, A smaller version of rasgulla )
2. 5 cups whole milk
3. 3/4th cup sugar
4. 2,3 pods of green cardamom pounded
5. A handful of chopped pistachio and almonds

Procedure

Open can of rasgulla and drain off the syrup. Heat them in microwave oven for around 30-40 seconds. Gently squeeze each of them to drain the syrup within.

Boil milk and cardamom pods in a heavy bottom pan so that it doesn't spill over. Add sugar to it. Keep stirring continuously on medium heat to avoid scalding.

Boil till it slightly thickens. Check the sweetness and adjust sugar. Remove the cardamom pods and discard.

Add rasgullas to it and boil for half a minute so that it soaks the milk. Rasgullas will break if you boil them more. Remove from heat and garnish with pistachio and almond.

Chill in refrigerator for atleast 3-4 hrs before serving.

Swiss Roll

My daughters school is closed for mid-winter break. That means there’s a steady stream of her friends dropping by for play-dates. The little ones are very picky about their food and frank about their opinions :). I strive my best to make them happy and swiss rolls with their variety of colors and filling provide the perfect opportunity to do so.

In this blog I have shown two different types of swiss roll, one with white cake and nutella combo and the other chocolate with strawberry cream combo.

Ingredients

1. For cake sheet
1. 1/3 cup all purpose flour
2. 3 tbsp. corn starch (corn-flour)
3. 3 tbsp. cocoa powder OR all purpose flour
4. 1/2 tsp. baking powder
5. 1/2 cup + 1 tsp. powdered sugar
6. 4 eggs (yolks and white separated)
2. For Filling
1. 4 heaped tbsp of cool whip
2. Your choice of spread: 4 tbsp. strawberry jam / strawberry relish / Nutella
3. Butter paper
4. Jelly roll tin as shown below. I didn’t have one handy so I used a cookie tray of 17” by 11”

Procedure

Preheat oven at 450F and place the rack in the center of it. Butter or spray non stick vegetable spray on a baking pan and line it with a butter paper. Butter and sprinkle flour on the surface of the butter paper.

In a small bowl whisk flour, corn starch, cocoa powder, baking powder and keep it handy. Corn starch gives a nice texture to the cake, if you don't have it replace it with equal quantity of flour. Coca powder (ingredient 4 options)  makes for a chocolate roll sheet, in case you use all-purpose flour you’ll get a white cake sheet.

Separate the egg yolks and egg whites and keep them in separate bowls.

Bring them to room temperature before you start mixing. In a large mixing bowl take egg yolks and sugar and beat them with hand mixer on high speed till they are creamy, pale yellow and fluffy. It takes almost 5 minutes to get this consistency. Now beat in the vanilla extract

.

Now gradually add flour mixture to it and fold in gently with a rubber spatula till it is just incorporated.

In a clean bowl take the egg whites and beat until foamy. When it will form a stiff peak, you will know that it is done. Beating separately makes the sponge cake elastic which enables the cake to be rolled out without cracking.

Gently fold the egg whites into the batter with a rubber spatula.

Remember not to use the electric blender to the batter once you have added flour to it.

Pour the batter into the prepared pan and spread evenly with a spatula. Bake for about 8-10 mins.

Immediately after removing sprinkle some sugar with the help of a strainer over it and turn the cake over into a clean dish towel.

Remove the butter paper and sprinkle some more sugar over it. Now roll the cake along with the towel from the short end and allow it to cool on a wire rack.

Lets make the filling by the time it becomes cool. In a bowl mix cool whip with strawberry preserve or jam and keep it in the refrigerator.

You can make your own cool whip by beating 250 ml of whipping cream along with 2 tbsp. of sugar in a electric mixture for about 5-7 mins.

 

Assembling

Unroll the cake, spread the filling evenly and reroll. Cut into medium thick slices and serve.

		Assembling the Roll VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

 

The final product based on your choice of cocoa powder  or all-purpose flour and strawberry jam vs Nutella looks as follows.