Another beautiful and rich variation of the chomchom from Bengal is Malai Chomchom (malai chamcham or malai chumchum). Soft, sweet and spongy rasgullas garnished with creamy rabri and pistachios make up a great dessert for special occasions. Learn how to make Malai Chomchom with the help of detailed recipe given below:
Preparation Time: 10 minutes
Cooking Time: 30 minutes + 2 hours to soak the chena in the sugar syrup (chashini)
Recipe Yield: 4 servings
Ingredients:
- Milk - 1.5 litre (1 litre for chena preparation + 1/2 litre for rabri preparation)
- Cardamom (chhoti elaichi) - 3
- Sugar - 1 cup (80 gm) for sugar syrup (chashini) + 20 gm for rabri preparation
- Vinegar (sirka) - 2 big spoon dissolved in 1 cup water
- Water for sugar syrup (chashini) - 4 times the amount of sugar
- Pistachios (pista) - as per requirement for garnishing
- Saffron Strands (kesar) - as per requirement for garnishing
Procedure:
- In a deep vessel (bhagona or pateela) pour 1 litre milk (doodh) and set it to boil on high flame.
- When the milk comes to boil, pour in 2 table spoon of vinegar (sirka) diluted in 1 small cup of water and stir with a ladle. Remember to do this process of curdling the milk on high flame. Notice that milk will begin to curdle (dudh ka phatna) after 1 minute into big lumps.
- Now spread a clean cotton cloth (handkerchief) over a deep vessel or bowl and pour the curdled milk to seperate the chena (or paneer) formed, from the liquid.
- Strain the liquid nicely using hands (as shown in the picture below). Gather the cloth from all sides in the form of pouch (potli) and rinse the chena left in the cloth with water. Squeeze the cloth with hands nicely so that the extra liquid is drained out. (Washing the chena with plain water will help in cooling down the chena and completely remove the taste of vinegar from it.)
- Now take out the chena as one piece in a plate. With your palm start mashing and chafing (masalna) the chena, and smoothen it nicely to form a smooth dough. (You can also churn the chena in a mixer for 1 minute to prepare its smooth dough.)
- Then add 1/2 pinch food color to the chena and mix it well with it. (Only 1/2 pinch of food color will bring a nice uniform color to the entire chena dough)
- Roll small balls of the chena and press and transform the chena balls into long oval shapes and then press them into flat oval shaped tikkis (as shown in the images below). Then keep them aside on a plate.
- For the sugar syrup (chashini), in a deep vessel (bhagona or pateela) take sugar and add water (4 times the amount of sugar) and lightly crushed cardamom (chhoti elaichi) to it. Allow the solution to boil and the sugar to dissolve completely. (Remember, the sugar syrup being prepared here is of flowy consistency) Once the sugar melts and dissolves completely allow the sugar syrup (chashini) to boil for 1 minute.
- Now add the flat oval shaped chena tikkis prepared to the boiling sugar syrup (chashini) and let it boil for a 2 minutes over high flame. After 2 minutes, lower the flame to medium level, cover the vessel with a lids and allow the chena to cook in the sugar syrup (chashini) for 15 minutes. (Do not cook the chena over very low flame. Cook only on medium level flame, which will neither allow the chena to turn black nor the sugar syrup (chashini) to dry up)
- Turn off the flame after 15 minutes and leave the chena in the sugar syrup (chashini) for 2 hours.
- During this time pour 1/2 litre milk (doodh) in a pan and allow it to boil till it becomes dense and reduces to half the quantity.
- When the milk (doodh) will become dense and creamy, it will turn slightly creamy yellow in color. Then add the remaining 20 gm sugar to it and mix well.
- When the sugar is completely dissolved, then turn off the flame. The rabri is ready to be used in later step (keep it aside to cool).
- After 2 hours of rest, transfer the flat oval shaped chena tikkis from the sugar syrup (chashini) to a serving dish (as shown in the images below).
- Arrange them in desired and beautiful presentable manner and then spread a layer of rabri on each of them.
- Then garnish each of it with chopped pistachios (pista) and saffron strands (kesar). The malai chaap is then ready to be served.
The entire process is similar to that of "Malai Chaap". For the photos of the procedure follow the link below: Malai Chaap Recipe