Rasgulla or Rosogulla is a traditional Bengali Indian mithai that is made of Chenna/ Paneer. Round balls of chenna which is then cooked in sugar syrup and served chilled. It’s one of the most common yet popular Indian sweet.
For making Rasgullas you just need three ingredients – Milk, Lemon Juice, or citric acid and Sugar syrup aka Chashni. Since Rasgullas are made of Chenna and super light in texture, it’s really healthy too. Just squeeze the extra chashni and have it. Tastes yummy!
Making perfect spongy rasgulla is an art. You might need a bit of practice and few attempts to make them perfect like market ones. But once you get the trick, this is the simplest and quickest sweet dish that you can make and serve it to your guests.
To make the recipe simple and easy to understand. I have divided the recipe into parts.
- Making Chenna.
- Rasgulla Balls
- The perfect Sugar Syrup
- Cooking Rasgullas
My Tips and Tricks on making the perfect Rasgulla at home:
Which milk to use?
- It is important to use full cream/whole milk to make soft Rasgulla. Low fat or fat-free will not give good results.
- I have used the packet milk though as cow milk was not available all thanks to lockdown.
- If possible, take pure Cow milk.
- Take un-boiled milk. Don’t use the already boiled milk.
How to curdle the milk/ curdling milk the right way:
- Boil milk in a heavy bottom pan or a Ganji/Bhagoni/Tapeli. Once it comes to a boil, switch off the flame.
- Do not curdle the milk while the gas is still on.
- Wait for 5 minutes after switching off the gas.
- Do not curdle the milk while it’s too hot.
- If you curdle it when it’s hot, the chenna will become hard.
- Use lemon juice, vinegar, buttermilk to curdle.
- I usually use citric acid mixed with water to curdle.
- Once curdled, add iced cold water in the vessel. It will stop the process of curdling.
How to make Chenna?
- After the milk is curdled, line a strainer with a muslin cloth and strain the Paneer whey {store this Paneer Whey as it has amazing uses and benefits} – I will share it next post.
- Collect the Chenna. Rinse it under tap water so that there’s no trace of citric acid or khatta flavor in it.
- Wrap this Chenna in the muslin cloth and squeeze out all the water.
- Even though you have to squeeze out the water completely from the Chenna, make sure that it’s not completely dry. The Chenna should feel soft and moist even after you have squeezed out the water.
- If required, wrap this Chenna in another cloth so that it soaks all the water.
Looking for more Indian sweet recipes. Here’s are few of my recommendations.
Looking for a full proof video recipe. Check this.
Instructions
- Making Cheena
- Take Milk in a pan or in a big vessel. Keep it on a low-medium flame and let it come for a boil.
- Once a boil has come, switch off the flame. Now add a tablespoon of water just to reduce the hotness of milk. This is optional, as you can wait for few minutes. We don't want to add lemon juice instantly.
- Squeeze out lemon juice in a katori.
- Now add lemon juice to the boiled milk little by little. I have squeezed out one big lemon. You will see milk will start curdling. Sometimes it take 1-2 tablespoons of lemon juice to curdled up the milk or sometimes it takes more. You have to keep an eye as well it has started curdling up.
- Now pour the curdled milk in the cheese cloth/muslin lined strainer or bowl.
- This is how it will look.
- Now wash it under tap water or wash it well, so that there is no smell of lemon is left.
- Once washed, squeeze out all the water from the muslin cloth. We do not want any water in the cheena.
- If you want, you can put this cheena on a dense cloth, so that it soaks all the excess water.
- Our Cheena is ready.
- Making Cheena Balls : Take Cheena in a thali.
- Now with the help of your fingers mash and knead the cheena, so that it becomes soft and combines together. It's a very important step, keep in mind that you do not want to knead it so much that it starts leaving oil or ghee.
- Now it time to make small balls from the cheena. Make equal size of lemon size cheena balls. I have made 13 out of it.
- Cheena Balls are ready.
- Making Chashni / Sugar Syrup : Take Sugar in a deep bottom pan. You have to use a large pot or pan so that there is enough space for the rasgullas to cook and increase in size.
- Add water and keep it on a medium flame.
- When a boil has come, add a tea-spoon of milk. It will help in taking out all the gunk from the Chashni and will give us a clear sugar syrup. Take out all the dirt as shown below.
- Strain this Chashni into a glass and pour it back into the same vessel. We want a gunk-dirt free clear Chashni/Sugar Syrup. It will look like the pic below.
- Our Chashni is done.
- Making Rasgullas. Put the Chashni on a high flame and slide all the rasgulla balls one by one.
- Meanwhile, from time to time keep adding one-one tea spoon of hot water into the Chashni so that there is enough water for the balls to cook. Otherwise, they might get hard.
- Let the rasgullas cook for about 14-15 minutes. Remember its important to add hot water from time to time. Just 1-1 spoon in about 5-7 mins is okay. You will see bubbles around the rasgullas, that is all okay.
- Final Step :
- Once 15 minutes is done. Switch off the gas.
- Now take another bowl of normal water. I have taken 3 cups of normal water.
- Transfer Rasgullas from Hot Chashni to normal water.
- Now pour half of the Chashni that we have made and cooked the rasgullas in.
- Let these rasgullas rest for about 4 hours to overnight.
- If you feel the rasgullas are hard, you can add a tea-spoon of warm water and they will become soft and spongy again.
- Tadaa! Spongy, Yummy and Tasty Rasgullas are ready to gulp down!
- Making Rasgullas is definitely an art and takes a lot of patience and practice. But trust me the end result is over whelming. That sheer joy of making rasgullas from your own hands is just amazing!
Recipe Notes
Happy Cooking!
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