Kiwi flavoured rasgullas.

Kiwis are in season. I had got them in my refrigerator too. So , just had an idea. Why not try rasgullas flavored with a kiwi ? And my mom's b'day was approaching too ! I googled for the recipe & drew a blank. I went ahead & made them .Method is similar to strawberry or mango rasgullas which I have posted earlier.

Ingredients : 1/2 litre low fat milk , 1/2 lemon , 1/2 cup sugar, 1 kiwi fruit washed & depeeled.

Method : Puree the kiwi in the mixer .Stain the pulp & keep aside. Please collect the watery liquid as well. Add more water to the pulp & stain it again after mixing pulp & water. Do this two three times.
Keep aside the pulp & the strained liquid separately in two vessels.

Heat  1/2 litre of milk in a vessel on the gas. When the malai starts forming on the milk being heated, add the kiwi pulp.Mix. Put off gas. The milk solids will separate & yet not much. Start squeezing the lemon into the milk .Keep mixing the milk & lemon juice. After a few minutes, all milk solids would have separated giving a clear slightly greenish grey water.Strain the liquid along with the milk solids on to a thin cloth. The water which gets collected can be used for making roti dough. Water can be added to rice while cooking as well.Wash the milk solids which have collected in the cloth 3-4 times to completely remove the smell of lemon .These milk solids form a lump called chenna or soft paneer.Tie the ends of the cloth into tight knot to remove excess water from the chenna. To facilitate this, put some heavy vessel on the cloth knot containing chenna & leave it for half an hour.

Meanwhile, put the pressure pan or any  wide vessel on the gas .Add one cup water to it. Add sugar .Put on the gas on slow mode. Very soon ,all sugar will have dissolved. Put off gas.Add the kiwi pulp strained water to this  syrup in the vessel or pressure pan.

After half an hour, untie the knots of the cloth & remove the chenna lump. It will be slightly green with black dots ( because kiwi pulp has been added ) .Knead this lump for fifteen to twenty minutes with your hands . This is to make the chenna softer & softer. Grease palms with a little ghee & start making small balls of the chenna.I got 12 small chenna balls. Drop these chenna balls into the kiwi water sugar syrup .Pressure cook these chenna balls in sugar syrup till 1 whistle. After the  whistle blows, lower the gas flame to slow. Keep it on slow flame for 8-10 minutes Then put off gas. After the cooker has cooled off ( generally 15-20 minutes ) , remove the whistle. Take off the lid. The kiwi rasgullas are ready !

The black dots seen in the kiwi rasgullas are the black seasame type seeds found in kiwis. They have a crunch too !

My rasgullas were a little hard. Perhaps, in a hurry, I had kneaded chenna just for ten minutes. Nrext time on , I will knead it for more than fifteen minutes so that the rasgullas turn out softer.

Mango rasgullas.

I have tried strawberry rasgullas as also orange rasgullas though have not yet posted the recipes.

Since mangoes are the flavour of the season ,i thought of trying mango rasgullas. I googled & came across two recipes.....one at Priya's Versatile recipes & another at boldsky.

I mixed up the two recipes.

Ingredients : 1/3 cup mango puree ( used Kesar mango puree ....home made from kesar mango ), 1/4 cup sugar, 1/2 litre fat free milk ( Amul ), juice of 1/2 - 1 lemon, 1-2 strands kesar, ghee for greasing hands, 1/2-1 lemon
.
Method : Boil half a litre of milk.Add kesar strands.As soon as malai starts forming ,add lemon juice by the spoonful ..Keep mixing the lemon juice with milk with a spoon. The milk will start curdling. Keep adding lemon juice & mixing till milk is curdled completely.This stage is when clear greenish water can be seen separated from lumps of solid white milky mass.The milky mass is chenna.

Keep a big white thin cotton cloth over a strainer.Keep this on a big vessel so that the clear water gets collected in the vessel.Strain the curdled milk with chenna on to the cloth on the strainer. The chenna will get collected in the cloth. Add 1 tbsp mango puree to the chenna. Mix nicely. Now wash the chenna with water 3-4 times  to remove all traces of lemon juice. Tie the cloth into a tight knot .This will squeeze remaining water from the chenna. Keep a heavy bottomed pan on the knotted cloth .Keep aside for half an hour to 45 minutes.

Meanwhile, boil 1 cup water in a  pressure pan .Add sugar.After sugar has dissolved inwater, put off gas. Add remaining mango puree .Add 1 cup water. Keep aside.

After 45 minutes of keeping chenna, it will have lost most of the water. Start kneading the chenna. Knead it for a good ten minutes. It will get softer & softer just like chapatti dough. Grease hands & start making small balls of the soft kneaded chenna. Drop these balls in the sugar mango syrup. Pressure cook upto 1 whistle. Then slow down the gas. Let it be on slow flame for 5 minutes. Put off the gas after five minutes.

Let the cooker cool.Remove lid & lo ,the mango rasgullas in mango puree are ready !

Let them cool to room temperature.Refrigerate the rasgullas & enjoy cold mango rasgullas !

I used Kesar mangoes as they are more sweet than alphansos.The sweetness was just right or maybe less sweet. Next time around, would love to try this without adding any sugar & using just pulp with water .

Rasgullas : Spoilt milk.

My mother had gone out of town.She had kept 1/2 litre milk packet in the refrigerator.And not in the freezer.The day she was to arrive home,I started warming the milk.After some time ,I heard some noise from the milk which was getting heated up.It was jumping.It was curdling.I kept the gas on.It curdled & seperated into whey & the water.I thought ,why not make rasgullas with the paneer type part which is gathering in the transparent watery solution.

Ingredients : 1/2 litre spoiled milk,1/2 cup sugar ,1 cup water, 3-4 cardamoms ...de peeled & grounded , kesar ( optional ).

I got a thin muslin cloth & filtered it out.The water I collected in a vessel.This water can be used for making rice and for kneading dough for rotis,etal.I washed the paneer in the muslin cloth twice or thrice with water .Pl read step by step instructions at Sangeeta Khanna's blog 

Then I kept the paneer all covered up tightly in the muslin cloth for about 1/2 - 1 hour so that remaining water gets drained away.Knead this mass nicely for about ten minutes till no lumps remain.Add 1-2 strands of kesar to this white mass.It will become very soft after kneading for 10 minutes.Apply a little ghee( if needed )  to the palms & make small balls out of the chenna. Repeat the process to make more balls till all chenna gets over.Keep aside.

In a vessel take 1/2 cup sugar.Add 1 cup water .Boil till, all sugar dissolves. Cardammom powder can be added while it is boiling.Put off the gas.

Drop the chenna balls into the sugar syrup.Take a pressure cooker & put the vessel containing chenna balls in sugar syrup in the cooker.Pressure cook till 1 whistle.Then lower the gas & cook for 5 minutes on slow .Put off the gas.I released the pressure after this step by slowly lifting the whistle .Then after the cooker's whistle became silent , remove the whistle.

Then remove the lid of pressure cooker.Take out the vessel containing rasgullas .

The rasgullas were spongy & yet they were  flattened...perhaps the syrup was less...so next time ,I will add more water.And still ,the rasgullas were intact not broken or torn. This is better explained at banaras ka khana ...so use more water for syrup.....maybe 1/3 cup sugar & 1 cup water for rasgullas made from 1/2 cup milk.Then the rasgullas will be round.

The black dots or specks that are seen are coarsely grounded cardamoms...because I was unable to grind them finely.

All who ate them were full of praise for my make over of spoiled milk ...they were very soft unlike market brought ones which are rubbery .So I was thrilled !