Ras malai is an awesome soft mouthwatering sweet delicacy liked by most of the sweet lovers. It is available in most of the sweet shops and can be made at home easily and served as a dessert or a welcome sweet to your guests. The beauty of this delicacy is absence of oil or ghee in it hence making it more popular amongst those who avoid much oily foods.

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Ingredients

• 2 litres Full Cream Milk
• 2 ½ cups Sugar
• 2 tablespoons Lemon juice
• 1 teaspoon Cardamom powder
• 7 or 8 Almonds, chopped into juliennes
• 7 or 8 Cashew nuts, chopped into small pieces
• 8 or 10 Charoli nuts (chironji)

Procedure for making Ras Malai

1. Put two separate pans on heat with one liter of milk in each to boil, one for fermenting milk to make chhena and other to make thick syrup by reducing it to 40% while boiling.
2. Keep stirring both the pans to their bottom so that milk does not stick at bottom and gets burnt, once the boiling is done remove the first pan from gas and keep aside to let it cool a little and switch the heat under other pan to medium high and keep on boiling while stirring in between.
3. Check whether the milk removed from heat has lost some of its temperature and if not so add some cold water to lower the boiling temp. Switch it off, then add lemon juice slowly to it while stirring. Once the milk starts to curdle or ferment stop poring lemon juice, stir for 2 minutes more and pour the entire fermented milk into a strainer cover with a cheese cloth or muslin cloth. Once the water is squeezed out of it pour in fresh water to wash the remained chhena to remove the sourness of lemon juice.

Note: You may use this cheese cloth.

4. Gather the muslin cloth from all around the washed chhena and press it gently to squeeze total water from it, shift the squeezed chhena onto a flat platter and press it rubbing for 10 to 15 minutes until it s nicely done and starts leaving some greasing effect.
5. Now divide the soft and rubbed chhena into 10 or twelve portions and give them a ball shape by rolling in your palms, press the ball shapes between your palms to flatten them a little and keep aside.
6. Put another pan on gas with 2 cups of sugar and 4 cups of water on high flame stirring in between until the entire sugar is dissolved and it starts boiling, drop all flattened cheese balls into the boiling syrup one by one and let them cook for 10 minutes with the covered lid on pan.
7. Take care of the milk being boiled on other burner, by now it would have reduced to 40% and hence thickened a bit. Add rest ½ cup sugar into this thickened milk and stir until dissolved, then add green cardamom powder, 3/4^th of chopped almonds, cashew nuts and chironji and turn of the gas after 5 minutes and let it cool down to room temperature.
8. Keep a regular watch on chhena balls and the sugar syrup also keep on flipping them gently to other side in between. Watch if the sugar syrup has thickened, add some water spoon by spoon to maintain the thinness of it but be careful of not lowering the temperature of it. Turn off the heat when the flattened chhena balls are done, it might take 20 to 25 minutes in all.
9. Drain out the chhena balls squeezing them gently and drop them in thickened and flavored milk syrup one by one, let them cool to room temperature and then refrigerate for 6 to 8 hours.
10. Serve chilled garnished with remained chopped dry fruits.

Preparation Time: 60 minutes

Serving Size: 2

Cook’s Tips:

1. Mash the squeezed cheese (chhena) vigorously to get a softer and smooth dough, that will yield real soft ras malai.
2. Always boil the cheese balls in sugar solution at high heat to get nice and puffy ras malai.
3. Consume the ras malai on the very same day of making or maximum next day if you keep them in refrigerator. If you want to prolong the period of consumption, don’t drop them in thickened milk syrup and let them remain in sugar syrup. Drop them in freshly made thick milk syrup on the day you want them to be consumed. This way you may prolong its shelf life to 5 or 6 days.