Celebrating 2 years of my blog and Chhena Poda (Indian Cheese Cake) for ICC March 2012

Hello All,

Wow, what a long break I had from the blog. I am not sure how to start explaining my MIA status. Of course I was busy, which was one reason, but I guess the other reason was what I have heard some bloggers call "Bloggers' Block" or something like that. Basically, there was no enthu to post anything. It was as if life had something missing. I missed my blog big time. I hope and will do my best to be regular now. It also means that I have not really been cooking anything special or worth blogging about.

See, the whole point of this blog was to share unseen and unknown or even famously known Rajasthani and some other recipes that people can learn from and enjoy. But, as that was the missing piece, there was nothing to blog about. We were literally eating usual same old dal/roti or roti sabzi all these days. Seriously, no kidding. My son would tell me every evening, again rice, again roti, why can't you do something different. And, I didn't have answer. Anyways, enough of my vent.

So, here I am with a very new and superb recipe called "Chhena Poda" or Indian Cheese Cake. This is a recipe from blog Anyone Can Cook. Very authentic Orissa Recipe. Orissa is south-eastern state of India. Please check her blog to find more mouth watering Oriya recipes. This was fortunately chosen as ICC recipe for this month. I am super duper late in posting it, and I have already apologized to Valli about it.

Now, that it is really late, but you know how they say "better late than never". My this small blog has also completed 2 years as of Feb 17th 2012. So, I would also like to thank my blog readers and fellow bloggers for all the encouragement and feedback that my blog and I have received in these 2 years. Thank you everyone, without you I couldn't be where I am today and you give me the strength to keep going :)

Without further boring you, here is the recipe which I loved and is our own variety of cheese cake that I am sure if you haven't already made and enjoyed, you will surely do so.

Chhena Poda (Indian Cheese Cake)

Ingredients

Full Fat or Low Fat Milk - 6 cups (this produced 1.5 cups Chenna/Khoya - Milk freshly curdled)
Lemon Juice - 2-3 tbsps
Suji ( Fine Semolina) – 1/4 cup
Fine Sugar - 3/4 cup (increase per your preference, I found this enough)
Cardamom powder - 1 teaspoon
Raisins - 1/4 cup
Cashew nuts - 2 tbsp Broken pieces (optional)
Ghee (Clarified Butter) - 1 tbsp

Preparation

Boil milk in a heavy bottomed pan and let it come to boil.
As soon as it starts boiling, add the lemon juice and simmer the milk for 5 min.
You will immediately see that milk starts curdling. Mix it once and switch off the gas.
After it cools down for about 3-4 min, strain it in a muslin cloth or fine mesh, to remove all whey. (This whey can be used to make soups or mix dough etc, so, don't just let it drain, but instead save it).
Meanwhile, pre-heat your oven to 360 degree F.
Nicely wring the muslin cloth to get rid of all the moisture from Chhena.
Mix all the other ingredients well into this chhena and mash it well with your hands.
To get nice caramelized effect, take the pan you will be using to make this cake, spread some ghee (clarified butter) in the bottom and on the sides.
Sprinkle some sugar at the bottom and hold it right above the gas for a min. or so, to slightly melt it.
Add the mashed chhena mixture, level it and bake it for about 1.5 hours or till a tooth pick comes out nice and clean.
After it cools down a bit, turn it upside down and serve right away or chill and serve.
The ingredients given above makes a big enough cake for 4 slices, so great for a family of 4.

Serving
We enjoyed it as dessert after our meal. It tasted great both warm and cold.

That's all for now. Keep visiting and encouraging me like this.