Rasgulla is a syrupy dessert made from ‘chena’ which is obtained by curdling the milk. A small ball is made from that dough and boiled in sugar syrup. It is a traditional sweet of Bengal. It is popularly known as rosogolla or roshogollah. The main ingredient of this syrup sweet is chena, semolina, milk, and sugar.
Rasgulla is the first syrupy Indian cheese dessert and high nutritious. As traditional rasgulla is served at room temperature but variants of this sweet are chilled and then served. It is embedded with a cardamom seed inside to enhance the fragrance. The main ingredient chena has a variety like sandesh, chhena poda, rasmalai.
History Of Rasgulla
It is complicated because a sweet victory has occurred between West Bengal and Odisha that it is their invention but both the states have their history of rasgulla.
Invention In Bengal
It is believed that it is invented by West Bengal in 1868 by a Kolkata based confectioner named Nobin Chandra Das. Das started making rasgulla by processing the mixture of chena and semolina in boiling sugar syrup in contrast to the mixture sans semolina in the original rasgulla in his sweet shop. His descendants claim that his recipe was an original.
Invention In Odisha
According to historians, it was originated in Puri and a 700-year-old sweet dish was part of a ritual. It is offered to goddess Lakshami at Jagannath Temple in Puri. It is said that it Laxmi gets upset because her husband Lord Jagannath goes on a 9-day sojourn (the rath yatra) without her consent. To appease her lord offered this sweet.
Known as khira mohana due to its almost white appearance back in the 11th century, it thus became customary to offer this chenna sweet dish to Goddess Mahalakshmi as prasad, especially on the last day of the rath yatra.
Rasgulla case is been in the limelight for many years. But last year Odisha won the sweet battle and got a geographical indication tag.
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Variation Of Rasgulla
Chenna Poda It uses chenna and sooji with little elaichi and sugar and is wrapped in the leaves of the Sal tree to be baked till the chenna poda develops a crust. It is baked for hours till it becomes golden brown. When ready, it looks like a big dish of caramel custard, which can be easily sliced into pieces.
Chenna Gaja It has the same ingredients of rasgulla this sweet has a different taste altogether. It is a dry dough mixture of chenna and sooji, which is cut and shaped in rectangle blocks (gajas). These are then deeply fried and coated with sugar syrup just before serving.
Rajbhog A larger version of the rasgulla, stuffed with dry fruits like almonds, pistachios, and saffron. It is made with soft fresh paneer, saffron, and stuffed with mix dry fruit, these are soaked in sugar syrup and served chilled or at room temperature.
Kamala Bhog It is an orange-colored rasgulla that is slightly bigger and it is made using orange extracts, essence, or food color. It is soft and smooth balls.
Rasmalai It is a slightly flattened rasgulla soaked in sweetened milk and dry fruits. The name ras malai is the Hindi cognate of Bengali: rosh, meaning “juice”, and molai, meaning “cream”. It has been described as “a rich cheesecake without a crust”.
Roohafza Rasgulla Recipe
Ingredient
- Milk 1 ltr
- Lemon juice 2 tbsp
- Cornflour 1 tbsp
- Sugar 1 cup
- Water 4 cups
- Roohafza 4 tbsp
Method
- Heat milk in a heavy bottom pan.
- Once the milk comes to a boil, add 2 tbsp of roohafza.
- Stir it nicely.
- Add lemon juice till the milk curdles.
- Drain the curdled milk using a muslin cloth. You are now left with what is known as “chena” or “paneer”.
- Squeeze the muslin cloth to remove all the water from the chena.
- Take the chena in a plate and add cornflour to it.
- Mash the chena with your hands for 10 minutes to make it soft and smooth. This is an important step to make sure that the rasgullas are soft.
- Make small balls from the chena after the mashing is done.
- Meanwhile in a pan mix the sugar, leftover roohafza and water and let it boil at high temperature.
- Put the rasgulla balls in the boiling sugar syrup.
- Cook the rasgullas in sugar syrup for 18-20 minutes on high flame.
- Refrigerate the roohafza rasgullas with the syrup and serve chilled.
