Rasgulla

Diwali is a time when I usually make (try to make :) ) some kinds of indian sweets for my family. Every year I think of different types of sweets that can be made from scratch. I remember a couple of years back when I asked my cook (who used to work in a restaurant earlier) to teach me how to make rasgullas. He told that he could make it easily. I got all the ingredients and he started making them. A couple of hours later I realised that I made a mistake by asking him. It was disastrous. All the curdeled Paneer was totally wasted in his effort to make rasgullas since he tried to put baking soda to make it fluffier. forget the fluff all the paneer balls disintegrated into the sugar syrup in no time and the whole thing was unrecognizable. I thought my dream of making rasgullas from scratch will remain a dream. Till the day one of my sis-in-law told me this "easy to do" recipe that can never go wrong. So hear it goes.

Ingredients:

• 1 ltr Toned Milk


• 2 cups Sugar


• 6 cups Water


• 1 tbsp Maida


• 1 Lemon


• Few drops of Rose Water


• Few strips of saffron

Method:
Boil the milk and remove the first layer of cream that forms after the milk is boiled and cooled for 5-10 minutes.

Now switch on the gas simmer the milk. Add the juice of 1 lemon and stir the milk till the milk starts to curdle.

If the milk does not curdle add some more lemon juice.

After the milk is curdled completely strain the milk onto a muslin cloth and tie it on the water pipe of your kitchen sink for the next two hours.

After 2hrs take the muslin cloth with the paneer and keep it on a flat base like the kitchen countertop. Now keep a 5 ltr cooker filled with water on top of this for the next 25 minutes.

After 25 minutes take the paneer out and start kneading it well till the ghee starts seperating. Now take 1 tbsp (not heaped but flat) of maida and add it to this paneer and knead it for some more time.

Make small lemon sized balls of paneer. Now take a cooker and pour 6 glasses of water into it. Switch on the gas and put the cooker with water on boil. Add two cups of sugar to this mixture.

When the water is boiled and the sugar is all l=melted add a few drops of Rose water and some kesar water into the mixture.

Now simmer the flame and drop all the paneer balls carefully into the sugar syrup.
Close the lid (with the whistel) and allow it to simmer for the nexxt 7 minutes. Ensure that the pressure within the cooker is not so much that it starts whistling when you close the lid.

After 7 minutes have passed switch off the flame and allow the rasgullas to remain in the cooker till all the pressure is down.

Once cooled remove the rasgullas onto a bowl along with the sugar syrup and refrigerate it immediately.

P.S: Use the cooker which has the lid that closes from inside for better results.