Pillow-y soft, melt in mouth Sondesh (Bengali Sweets) with a slight hint of pineapple in them.
How was your long weekend?
Our long weekend was merely boring. Matthew was painting the new apartment, so I spent most of the time cooking and cleaning. I have fired my cleaning lady (Okay, that was dramatic). No, I have not fired her. I will be taking her twice a month rather than every week.
Matthew protested against my decision but as usual I did not listen. I am doing the household chores as exercise. So every day I am setting aside 45 minutes and doing heavy cleaning. It helped me in the past and I am sure it will help me now.
I never lost weight going to Gym or walking. I always lost weight eating at home and doing household chores. When I was at Buffalo, I never ate out and I did all my household chores. It helped me to stay at 102 pounds. Since I got married, we hired a cleaning girl and we eat out a lot. So here I am at 120 pounds.
My doctors prescribed me to see a dietician but I am just controlling my food intake and trying to stay active. In between studies, job application and design work I am taking a short break and moving my lazy fat ass.
Anyhow, as it was a long weekend, I wanted to make something Matthew loves.
Matthew has a weakness towards Bengali sweets, however I stop him from paying $$ to buy desserts. So every now and then he asks me ‘When will you make sweets?’ I keep postponing; but this week I picked up a gallon of whole milk while shopping at Whole Foods. It’s been a while I made Bengali Sweets. I made 2 kinds of Sondesh before. You can find them here and here.
But this time, I wanted to try something fresh and most importantly I wanted to work with fruits. These sweets are made of fresh paneer, which is cooked with sugar, ground with pineapple and left in the refrigerator to settle. They are pillow-y soft, melt in mouth.
- Fresh Paneer is absolutely must in a Sondesh recipe. You can’t get the pillow-y soft texture with store bought paneer. So don’t ask me, if you can use store bought paneer.
- I was hesitant to use canned pineapple. The recipe calls for canned pineapple because tinned pineapple is soaked in sugar syrup. If you’re using fresh pineapple, you need to cook in sugar syrup. I settled on an organic canned pineapple.
- Settling time is quite important. Please make sure you let the cheese mixture sit for minimum 4 hours before cutting them. More is better.
- Chopped pistachio on top is purely optional.
Recipe for Pineapple Sondesh
Makes 20
Original Recipe is from here.
Canned pineapple is strongly recommended here. Drain the water and transfer them into a cheese cloth. queeze them extremely hard to make sure pineapple is completely drained. There should be no water left in pineapple.
.75 gallon (3 liters) whole milk
Juice of 2 lemon
2 tablespoons distilled vinegar
2 tablespoons water and more
1/4 cup granulated sugar*
1 can pineapple, drained and squeezed*
1 tablespoon ghee, to grease
1 tablespoon chopped pistachio for garnish
1. In a non-stick soup pot, over a medium-high heat, heat milk. Keep stirring, otherwise the milk will stick to the bottom. When it starts to boil (make sure it is a rolling boil), set it aside. Cut lemons in half and squeeze the juice into a bowl. Add one tablespoon of water and vinegar.
2. Add lemon-vinegar solution to the milk. It will start coagulating within 3 to 4 seconds. Hold a strainer over a mixing bowl and line it with a cheesecloth. Carefully pour the milk curds into the strainer, letting the whey collect in the bowl. Set the whey aside. (You can save the milk whey for making paneer in the future)
3. Add 2 cups (or more) of water to the paneer and wash it well (washing it not only helps to get rid of the acidity, but also helps cool it down). Gather the four corners of the cheesecloth in your hand and gently squeeze to remove the excess whey (you do not need to hang the paneer to it cool down as long as you squeeze it well enough).
4. Set it aside in a big mixing bowl. With the palm of your hands, knead the paneer for 7 to 8 minutes. It should have a fine consistency.
5. In a non-stick pan, over a low heat, heat the kneaded paneer dough and sugar. Stir continuously for 12 minutes (use a timer). Paneer and sugar dough should not stick to the non-stick pan very much.
{Check my picture for consistency. Set it aside.}
6. Transfer the paneer sugar mixture and squeezed pineapple to a food processor. Mix it thoroughly until it’s completely smooth. Take it aside. Grease a pyrex or glass container with ghee. Gently place the paneer-pineapple mixture into it. Press it with back of a spatula to spread even. Let it chill it refrigerator for 4 hours to a day.
7. Cut them into square pieces or shape them into ball. Garnish with chopped pistachio and serve them.
A few more Bengali Sweets (Sondesh) recipe
- Chocolate Sondesh – Chocolate fresh cheese balls
- Bhapa Sondesh – Steamed fresh cheese sweets
- Sondesh – Jaggery fresh cheese sweets
- Kanchagolla – sweet soft cheese balls
Lovely recipe with the steps explained so clearly. Beautiful pictures as always. The last one is my favorite ❤️❤️
Can you send me some please
Meera,
You’re my inspiration for that.
Those sweets look and sound delicious! Lovely clicks too.
All the best with losing weight. 120 pounds (54kg), that isn’t what I’d call “fat”, though…
Cheers,
Rosa
Sondesh is my favorite Bengali mishti, and these pictures made me want some like right now.
I was in Kolkata in July and got box full from there…
Rosa,
Perks of being a food blogger I guess! 🙁 Thanks darling
We too get 2 packets of Sondesh when we go there.
Sondesh looks yum.
Agree with Rosa 😀 45 minutes heavy cleaning in that spotless home!! ah don’t make a tunnel into your other house 😀 just kidding.
Come here Meena and stay with me! <3
Looks yumm dolphi. Gorgeous clicks!
Love the post…
The photography is gorgeous, I love the top down shots a lot.
As far as you are concerned, you are not a lazy fat ass…..please!!