Food Talk
Litmus test of culinary skills

Few can make melt-in-the-mouth rosogollas to perfection, writes Pushpesh Pant

Rosogolla is synonymous with Bengal, it is the mishti that epitomises the sweetness of the language, folk music and all the rest that the denizens of this enchanted golden tract of land are inheritors to. Today one can buy mass-produced rosogolla in hygienically packed tins that have a lucrative market at home and abroad and seldom does one take the trouble to buy these form the neighbourhood halwai who more often than not turn out an indifferent imitation of the real thing. The sponge is missing and slightly larger than marble balls, they are doused in rose water-laden syrup of varying sweetness. There are almost none who attempt this delicacy at home. One recalls with great nostalgia the days when this was considered the litmus test of the culinary — dessert making — skills of the lady in the house. Anyone, it was said, can boil the kheer (not true) but few can make the chhena delight.

SONDESH
Ingredients: 250 gm cottage cheese, 125 gm sugar, flavouring, if desired
Method
Knead the cottage cheese into soft granular dough.

Put water in a wok and place over moderate heat. Add sugar and stir till it dissolves slowly. Boil until syrup thickens, and add the cottage cheese gently, folding it in with a wooden spoon and stir until it begins to dry.

Remove wok, add the flavouring of your choice and continue to fold the mixture against the side of the wok until it is cool.

Press the mixture into greased clay or wooden moulds. Remove from mould and serve.

ROSOGOLLA
Ingredients: 500 gm sugar, 250 gm cottage, cheese/chhena)

Method: Knead cottage cheese into a soft dough and shape into balls slightly smaller than the desired size of the rosogollas. Put water in a pan and place over moderate heat.

Add sugar and stir till it dissolves slowly. Boil till the syrup thickens and then strain. Return syrup to the pan and return to boil. Drop the balls carefully into the boiling syrup.

Place the lid on the pan and cook for another 30 minutes. Remove the lid and gently remove rosogollas from the pan. Serve once they get back to room temperature.

Interestingly, the sweet is comparatively young — much younger than the city that Job Charnak ‘founded.’ The story begins with sondesh, a light sweetmeat that heralded good tidings (the word literally means a message). If prosaic food historians are to be believed, sondesh was made possible only by the advent of the Portuguese who introduced the technique of artificially curdling milk. Indians, we are told, considered tearing milk inauspicious. This seems a bit far fetched as curd obtained by curdling milk has always been an integral part of Hindu rituals and meals and there are countless literary references to sondesh dating back to the 16th century.

In its unadorned form, fresh chhena is merely and barely sweetened and is called kachcagolla small orb that is fragile like glass or something unripe and indeed the test of its freshness is crumbly to touch. Sondesh is also cast in moulds to look like flowers fruits and is at times flavoured or aromatised with orange peel, rose essence or saffron accordingly. A lighter chhena is obtained by curdling the milk with whey that is highly perishable. Sondesh encasing a large glob of palm jaggery molaces — nalingudher sondesh — is a highly priced seasonal delicacy in winters. Legend has it when Nobin Chnadra Das a young moira (traditional confectioner) in the late 19th century decided to experiment with sondesh and boiled it in mildly sweet syrup, the rosogolla was born. Contrary to popular misconception, these Bengali sweets can easily be made at home.

We share with our readers the recipes for both sondesh and rosogolla.

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