BENGALI RASGULLA – HOW TO MAKE SOFT AND SPONGY RASGULLA USING PRESSURE COOKER – FESTIVAL RECIPE

Rasgulla is one of the traditional Bengali sweet. It is a soft and spongy milk solid balls in sugar syrup.

Traditionally Rasgullas are prepared in big vessels. We can also prepare rasgualls in pressure cooker it also gives an end result of soft and spongy rasgualls and also it is less time consuming.

Ingredients:

Cow`s full cream milk                        1 liter

Lime juice                                             3 tbsp

Sugar                                                      2 cups

Water                                                     4 cups

Ice cubes                                                10

Cardamom powder (optional)             ½ tsp

Saffron strands (optional)                    few

Procedure for preparing Rasgulla:

For Cheena:

1. In a pan/vessel boil milk and when it just reaches boiling point add lemon juice and keep stirring until it curdles completely.
2. Bring down the vessel from stove.
3. Add ice cubes to the curdled milk and rest for 5 minutes. (adding ice cubes will help the curdled milk solid not to become hard).
4. Take a colander and line it with muslin cloth, using that separate the whey and milk solids. Now run it through the cold tap water. So it stops the cooking process. Also it removes the citrus taste from it.
5. Wrap the cloth and press it or squeeze it till no more water is dripping.
6. And when you unwrap the cloth you will have a lumpy mass of soft cheena into a plate.

For kneading cheena and shaping balls:

1. Crumple cheena, you will see granules of milk solids.
2. Knead the cheena using the pressure of your palms. It is really important to knead the cheena well to get the perfect rasgulla.
3. Knead well for 5 minutes then add 1 tsp of sugar and knead well for another 3-4 minutes till you get a smooth dough.
4. Make small balls out of the smooth dough. Balls should not have any cracks.

For sugar syrup:

1. Meanwhile add sugar and water in the pressure cooker and boil it.
2. Once it starts boiling add the rasgulla balls into it. Close the lid and pressure cook till 1^st whistle and reduce the flame to low and cook for 5 minutes. Put off the flame.
3. Bring down the pressure cooker from stove. Slowly release the pressure and let it sit for 5 minutes. Open the pressure cooker lid. We find puffed up, soft and spongy rasgullas.
4. Let it cool at room temperature or refrigerate and serve chilled.

Notes:

1. Using cow`s full fat milk is more preferred for this recipe.
2. Use a 5-liter pressure cooker to get round shaped rasgullas as small cooker may give a shapeless rasgullas as there won`t be much space for the rasgullas to puff up freely.
3. U can add cardamom powder while preparing sugar syrup. U can garnish with few strands of saffron.