Rasmalai

All time favorite Indian dessert of almost everyone who had tasted it at least once .Made out of freshly made paneer / cottage cheese dumplings in creamy milk sauce with the flavor of cardamom and saffron. What else can you ask for a perfect dinner or lunch to end up with. So without much blah blah let’s hit the recipe……
Ingredients:
1. Full fat milk – 2 litres
2. Water – 3 cups
3. Sugar – 1 cup + 3-4 tbsp
4. Lemon juice – of one lemon
5. Pistachios and almonds chopped – ¼ cup
6. Saffron – a pinch
7. Cardamom powder – a pinch
Making of the paneer;
* Boil one litre of milk.
* When the milk comes to a boil add the lemon juice diluted in a small cup of water little by little stirring the milk continuously so as to curdle the milk. (while doing this you should be very careful that the milk should not get over curdled which would result in giving hard paneer/cottage cheese since we need very soft paneer for rasmalai)
* Once the milk curdles up with a very soft texture switch off the flame and put some ice cubes which will prevent the milk from further curdling up.
*Strain the paneer in a cheese cloth or any thin cotton cloth and hang it up for around ½ hour to 1 hour in the cloth itself to get the extra moisture out of the paneer.

While this is happening we can make the milk sauce;

*Boil the rest of the 1 litre milk. Once it comes to a boil simmer n keep stirring until it becomes ½ litre you can actually see the color change here from milky white to slightly yellowish cream color.
*Add 3-4 tbsp of sugar to the milk or more if you want but that would be very sweet.
*Now add the chopped pistachios and almonds and give it a stir and let it boil for 5 more minutes and off the flame.
*finally add the saffron and cardamom and stir.

Now its time to check the paneer;

*We have to make a soft dough of the paneer, for that you can either get it done with the help of a food processor or can be done with your hands. But the hand process may take a bit long to get it done into the right consistency.
*Well I did it with my hands only but that was pretty quick with the help of a small towel, that is without taking out the paneer from the cheese cloth I kept it on a towel on the kitchen slab and pressed and smashed it with one end of the towel which not only squeezed out the extra moisture but made the paneer into very soft dough with in a jiff around 3-5 minutes.
*Now divide the dough into10 small portions and make it into balls and give it a slight press to get a flat shape without much crumbled edges though slight crumbles are fine .(try not to make the balls too big because once put it into the sugar syrup it will double in size)

Now comes the sugar syrup part;

*While dealing with the paneer it self keep the 3 cups of water and one cup of sugar for boiling.
*Once it comes to rolling boiling state drop the paneer balls into it and close it with a lid and let it boil on high for about 10–15 minutes.
*After 10-15 minutes you can see the paneer balls all spongy and double in size floating in the sugar syrup.
*Now take the paneer balls out of the syrup and let it get cool.

Final stage;
*Warm up the milk syrup if it has got cool down by this time coz that helps in soaking up of the paneer balls very well.
* Squeeze out the extra syrup out of the paneer balls slightly do not press it too hard.
* Now drop it into the milk sauce and let it get cool.
*Garnish with some more pistachios and saffron.
*Serve chilled.

NOTE: Getting the paneer balls real spongy is quite tricky it all depends upon how soft paneer you are getting after curdling the milk. So be very careful during the curdling process.