Rasgulla / Rosogolla - Bengali syrupy dessert

Two days back it was Bengali New Year or Nababarsha as we call it. Any Bengali festival would not have been completed without eating the favourite Bengali sweet – Rasagolla or Roshogolla or Rasgulla. It is such a common food in a Bengali home that probably every Bengali in any part of the world has eaten these divinely sweet balls of chana in his / her childhood.  It is entangled with the Bengali culture. As you know I live in Bangalore and here it is not so readily available - we always crave for it. We used to get this from some special sweet shops but the taste was not as good as in our childhood. I tried to make this in home but few times it turned out to be failure – either too sweet or too soft or too rough etc. This nababarsha I was determined to make it perfect and here is the result.

Preparation Time

Paneer/chana/chenna: - 15 min
Chana balls: - 15 min
Sugar Syrup: - 10 min

Cooking Time: - 

12~15 min for each batch. I did it in two batches.

Servings: - 

Fully depends on the personal capacity. My husband in younger days could eat them all.

Ingredients:

• Milk – 1 ½ L
• Sugar – 3 cup or roughly ½ kg.
• 2~3 tbsp of lime juice or 3 tsp White Vinegar
• 1 tsp All purpose flour / Semolina (Suji) / Corn starch– this is for binding
• 5~6 Cardamom
• Safron – about 10 strands
• 6 cups water

Preparation:-

1. Prepare chana / chenna from the milk by following my earlier recipe here. Please remember to squeeze even the last drop of water from the chana /paneer.
   
2. Once the paneer /chana dried up mix the all purpose flour / Semolina (suji) with chana. You can use corn starch instead if you prefer the rasgulla to be totally gluten free.
   
3. Begin kneading with the heels of your palms. Keep on collecting the chana / chenna from the sides and continue to mash and knead. When you feel your palms are becoming a bit greasy, its time to stop. Just a bit of greasiness is required. Do not make the whole chenna greasy. This is actually very boring and I do this when watching any TV serial. But this is very important as the softness and sponginess of the rasgullas depend on this. It generally takes about 10 minutes for me but may vary with you as it depends on the quality of chenna and the pressure you apply while kneading.
   
4. Pinch small portions from the chana and roll them between your palms to a smooth round ball. It is very important that the balls are very smooth. You should break one to find if any impurities are there or not.
   
5. I got about 18 balls from my preparation.
   
6. Cover the balls in a slightly moist cloth / kitchen towel and keep aside.
   
7. Now we need to make the sugar syrup. Here I used a flat heavy bottomed steel pot /pan (dekchi in Bengali). You can use pressure cooker as well. Now my pan was not very big and I had to give space for the rasgullas to inflate ( In fact the rasgullas swells almost 3 times after cooking) – so I prepared the syrup twice each time for 9~10 balls.
8. Take 3 cups of water and 1 ½ cups of sugar and mix them well.
9. Put the mixture on gas stove and turn on the stove in high setting. Add 2~3 cardamom and 5 strands of saffron. If you want pristine white rasgulla then do not add saffron.
   
10. Stir occasionally to dissolve the sugar fully and bring it to boil.
11. When it starts boiling turn the burner to medium heat and put 9~10 balls of chana in the pan gently.
12. Shake gently so that the rasgullas spread themselves evenly in the pan. Cover the lid and start cooking the rasgullas.
13. Cook for about 12 min. If you use pressure cooker you may need lesser time (8 min+ 2 min before releasing the pressure).
    
14. Turn off the burner and check whether rasgullas are properly cooked. They should increase in size considerably and feels spongy. You can check by putting each one in a small bowl of water. If the ball sinks fully then it is done.
    
15. Keep the rasgullas and the warm sugar syrup in a seprate bowl to cool down.
    
16. Use the same pan for making sugar syrup again and repeat step 7 – 14. I could have used the same syrup twice but that dilutes the taste. Hence I prepared twice for two batches.

That’s all folks. You can serve warm or Freeze and serve cold. It is said that warm roshogollas are good if you have stomach upset. But hey, it is summer time and I want everything to be chilled.

As always please feel free to comment, criticize and seek if any help is required. I am all ears.