Rasgulla

Happy Birthday my dear bloggy... ! Veg Bowl! turned a year old this month. Time is fleeting. With what began a personal diary of few recipes went into public later last year. I am touching my 85th post with this one and it feels really nice.

Ever since the inception of my blog, Veg Bowl! has gone through several changes. It's close to a year since this blog was initiated and I have been constantly striving to improve it. The blog has been through constant amendments from its look to food, photography, matter, presentation and much more.

For the ones who have been in constant touch with my blog would know how much the site has transformed. It is getting to a good shape considering what it was earlier. Themes and backgrounds have been changed a couple of times. I had to change the previous ones as I thought they were a little too loud for my taste. I preferred simple looking blog with easy to navigate links, keeping it to the bare minimum, least to confuse the readers.

Though I have changed it to a considerably simple and elegant one now, I was not thoroughly happy with it earlier. I am still working around with options, positioning widgets, playing around with css codes, all trying to bring best out of it. I am finally done with the herculean task of completing the format as I had visioned it. Widgets have been changed, added, positioned, new tabs included, font, text, hovers and photos have been customized. It's been a very tedious task, having spent hours over this to transform to it's new look. With a complete make-over, I am now feeling satisfied with how it has come out. A few tit-bits are yet to be taken care, but that will happen over time.

As my bloggy baby turns a year old, I wanted to have a simple sweet dessert to celebrate her birthday. A rustic, simple Indian dessert which carries the Bengali elegance. Rosogolla, which is most commonly known as Rasgulla, is essentially a Bengali sweet made from paneer or Indian cottage cheese.

Coming to making these at home, in my opinion I am more better off taking pleasure in the store bought ones. A little tedious at task, you need to be really careful while making these. I had a disaster in my first attempt. They tore apart floating like clouds in sweet water, so they never reached this space. With the second one though, I was extremely careful to follow the instructions as is. Being successful at it, I was glad the way they turned out to be.

Rasgulla

To make Cottage Cheese/Chenna

1/2 lt milk
1 tsp lemon juice

Heat the milk till it comes to a boiling stage. Add the lemon juice till the whey separates away from curd. Give 5 minutes standing time to let the curd separate well. Hang the curd in a muslin cloth to let the whey drain away. Holding the ends of the muslin cloth, squeeze the water away to form coagulated mass.

With the heel of your hand, mash the paneer/cottage cheese/chenna repeatedly to make it dough like. This task is not easy as the cheese needs to be really well knead. It has to be mashed well repeatedly. I used mixie and it came out very fine. Gather it together and knead again like dough. Add 1/2 tsp Baking powder for a better rise. Allow to rest 15 min. Meanwhile prepare the sugar syrup.

To prepare the syrup

1 cup sugar
2 cups water
Strands of saffron
Few pistachios and cardamom powder for garnish

The ratio is of 2 cups water to 1 cup sugar. Add 1/2 cup sugar to water to start with. Bring it to a boil. Pinch the cheese balls to make 1/2" diameter balls each. Carefully drop the balls in boiling syrup. The balls will swell in about 5 to 10 minutes. Remove them once they puff up.

Add the remaining one cup of sugar and heat till all the sugar is dissolved. Add rose water if you have. They impart great flavors. Let it cool and then add the rasgullas to the sugar syrup again. Garnish with shaved Pistachio & nuts. Chill in fridge for an hour or more. They are best served cold or at room temperature.

A few tips which can help you a long way in making great tasting (and looking too ;)) rasgullas can be taken from here. These Rasgullas have fragrance from cardamom, pistachios and saffron. Saffron imparts a nice mild flavor, but can be skipped if you don't have any. These are sure to be loved by all.