Kesar Sandesh / Sondesh

Bengali cuisine is well known for many mouth watering, dairy based sweets and I am fond of them all. I am a sucker for chhena based desserts like champakali, chamcham, rosgulla and rasmalai since I was a kid. Those were the things I would order at the end of a meal at restaurants back when I was in India and still do when I visit India. Somehow I like the succulent texture of the above dishes and they top my "most favorite desserts" list even today. I couldn't therefore let go this "Something Sweet" themed week of BM#12 without a milk based sweet and so here is kesar sandesh or sondesh, as Bengalis call it.
Sandesh is prepared with chhena and it has just melt in mouth kind texture and palate pleasing yumminess. If you have chhena ready, this is a simple dish to prepare and impress your guests. It gives an impression that you toiled for long in the kitchen.

Ingredients:
10 cups milk (About 2 litres of milk)
6 Tbsp of sugar
1/2 tsp cardamom powder
a pinch of saffron soaked in a tsp of warm milk
Sliced pistachios for garnishing
(Additionally vinegar / lemon juice to prepare chhena.)

Method:
* Prepare chhena with the milk as shown here.
* Traditionally the chhena and sugar are kneaded well, manually. This time around, I skipped that step since I had seen some of the blogger buddies blending the two ingredients in a mixer. I followed that this time and put the chhena, sugar and cardamom powder in the food processor and pulsed it until I got a smooth mixture.

* Put the mixture and saffron along with the warm milk it is soaked in, in a non stick pan and start cooking on low - medium flame. I added a pinch of yellow color for appeal and that is totally optional. Keep stirring in between to avoid the mixture from scorching, especially if you are not using a nonstick pan.

 

* After a few minutes, you will start to notice that the mixture almost reaches liquid stage again. Don't panic. Keep on stirring until it thickens. The whole procedure takes a good 20 - 25 minutes. This is really a simple dessert to prepare and woo your guests. No expertise or knack required. You just must be able to stir the contents in the pan. :)

* When the mixture comes together, turn off the stove and let it cool a bit. Then mould the mixture into preferred shape using your hands and garnish with nuts and extra saffron if desired.

Check out here to know what my fellow marathoners have come up with during this marathon.

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