Rasamalai / Paneer

Ingredients

1. Milk - 8 Cups
2. Lemon Juice- 3 tbsp
3. Water- 3 Cups ( Add 1 more cup if necessary )
4. Sugar -1  Cup for cooking paneer  and 5 tbsp minimum or more  for the rasa syrup
5. Saffron - 1 pinch
6. Cardamon Powder- 1 tsp
7. Pista and Almond chopped- 4 tbsp

How to Cook


To prepare the Rasa of the Rasamalai

 We need to boil the milk and keep on stirring the milk until it reduce to half the volume ( reduced to 2 cups milk ) .The step by step process for the same is given below. 
 1: Pour 4 cups milk in a non -stick pan for boiling and switch on the gas.
 2: Crush saffron with sugar and add this to the milk in the pan immediately. 

   
 3: Keep stirring  occasionally. Milk will start to thicken.  

 4 : After 20 to 30  minutes , it will thicken more and reduce to almost 2 cups. 

 5: After milk khoya is ready,add the cardamon powder crushed. the chopped almonds and pista, sugar to taste ( approximately 5 tbsp minimum) . Switch Off the flame. Keep it aside. 

To Prepare the Paneer

We need to prepare the Paneer for the rasamalai  . You will need a thin cloth .Either a muslin cloth or thin cotton cloth.

 1 :  Take a steel pan and pour 4 cups of milk.

2:When it start to boil add the lemon juice into it slowly.

3:  Milk will start curdling. 

4:Within seconds paneer will start getting separated, a very light green colour liquid start to appear. Switch off the flame at this stage.

5:  Immediately get  ready with a vessel with pores and  a very light cloth  to strain the paneer.

 6:  Place the cloth in the vessel and strain the paneer .

 

 7: Pour some cold water over it to cool it down. it also helps to remove the lemon flavour from the paneer.

8:  Fold the cloth and drain the water out as much as possible.

9: Hang the cloth for half an hour so that the water is drained out of the paneer completely. Please squeeze out once again to make sure rest of the water if any, is also drained out. Open the cloth and take the paneer out.
10: Run the paneer through a food processor to make it smooth.

11:  Go on kneading the dough to make it more smooth.Knead for around 25 minutes.
12: Make small balls ( approximately ping-pong sized balls)  out of the dough.Flatten it .

13:  Take the pressure pan and pour 3 Cups water ( or 4 Cups if necessary ) , 1 cup sugar and switch on the flame.
14: Put the flattened paneer pieces into the sugar solution.

15: Close the pan and let it cook to 1 whistle.

16: After 1 whistle , wait for 5 minutes .Slowly pour cold water over the pressure pan ( take the pan to the sink and pour water from the tap)  to remove the pressure. 
17: As soon as the steam goes out , open the pan and transfer the cooked paneer pieces with a spoon along  with little sugar solution from the pan  (so that the paneer doesn't get dried ) and keep it aside in another bowl.

18:After it gets cooled, take the paneer pieces out and place it between your hands to squeeze out the sugar syrup.Place it in another bowl.

19: After it is done , pour the rasa syrup over the paneer pieces.

21: Your yummy rasamalai is ready . Refrigerate it  for sometime. Serve chilled.

NOTE: You can also make paneer rounds out of the dough and directly use as paneer .