Ras Bhari Rasmalai - ICC Challenge

Hello friends,


Yet another delicious challenge for ICC. I always loved Ras Malai, but never in my wildest dreams thought of making it at home. But, here was an opportunity and shall I say I passed in flying colors. They were the best ras malai I ever had. The softest, milky, sweet cootage cheese balls.


With the measurements mentioned below, it took me about 2 hours from start to finish and I could make about 20 balls.


Ras Malai - रस मलाई (Cottage Cheese Balls in Milk and Sugar Syrup)

Ingredients
For Making Paneer Balls
Milk - 2 liters (8.5 cups)
Lemon Juice - 2 tbsp
Maida (All Purpose Flour) - 1.5 tsp
For Making Sugar Syrup
Water - 3 cups
Sugar - 8 tbsp
For Making Milk Syrup
Milk - 1 liter (4.25 cups)
Sugar - 8 tbsp
Kesar (Saffron) - few strands
Ilaichi (Cardamom) Powder - 1/2 tsp
Preparation
Preparing Paneer Balls

• Take a thick bottomed pan and boil milk.
• Once milk starts boiling, reduce the heat to low setting, add lemon juice to it and mix well.
• Within 5 minutes the chhena (paneer) should be separated from whey water.
• Now, take a muslin cloth or cotton towel, place it in a colander and separate chhena from whey water.
• Save whey water to be used to make doughs or for soups for later.
• Now, tie the towel tightly and keep it for 30 min. to 1 hour, so that all the moisture is gone from chhena
• Take the chhena in a bowl and mix it well with hands for few min. till it becomes all smooth.
• Add the maida to chhena and mix well again.
• Now, make this chhena mix into small sized balls (see the pic).

Preparing Sugar Syrup and Boiling Paneer Balls

• Bring water and sugar to boil in a pressure pan or cooker (if you use a normal pan with lid, the cooking time can be increase by 10 more min.)
• Once sugar syrup starts boiling, add paneer balls from the step above slowly and then cover the lid of the cooker and let it boil for about 10 min (with the weight kept on the cooker).
• Once the cooker is cold and cover is removed, squeeze these balls lightly to remove excess syrup from them.

Milk Syrup

• Heat milk in a thick bottomed pan.
• Once it comes to boil, reduce heat and let it simmer till it has almost reduced to half in quantity.
• Add sugar, saffron and ilaichi powder and let it cook for few more min.
• Remove it from gas.

Assembling Ras Malai

• Add Rasgulla Balls in Milk syrup while milk syrup is hot.
• Let them rest in the milk syrup for at least 2-4 hours before serving.
• They are ready to be served (if you like them hot) or feel free to refrigerate if you would like them cold.

Serving
Serve them hot or cold (as you prefer) with some chopped pistachios on top. Back when and where I grew up, we always ate them warm and it was served with warm milk syrup and that is how both my husband and I like it.


That is all for today. On this sweet note, take care till next post.