Nolen Gurer Sandesh

We are approaching to the end of this year 2013. Everyone is in Happy Holidays mood. Many of you must have brought new Christmas trees to your home, decorated the trees with beautiful ornaments and lightings or the old boxed artificial Christmas trees might have been out from the closet to your living room by now and rejuvenated by the lovely touch and design of your family members. Out hearts glow with the Glitter Sequin Buck Christmas Decor, colorful wreaths, or illuminated candy canes. We have started shopping for gifting something special for all special members of our family or friends on this special auspicious occasion. The end of a year marks the fresh start of a new year, new resolution, new hopes, and new aspirations. To celebrate the special occasion we will always indulge into sweet treats from cakes, pies, cookies, ginger breads to custard, chocolates and Indian savory sweets.

This time in India specially in Bengal we devour into special date/palm molasses. The sweets made from this molasses are super tasty and the smell is awestruck. If you have any sweet from rasogolla to sandesh from this nolen gurh (date molasses), you can't stop to smack your lips. I love the local market where small vendors sell the molasses in earthen pots and the the smell of aromatic jaggery/gurh/molasses spreads all around. Once I visited Diamond Harbor.There I saw how a person was making molasses from the syrup collected from a date tree. The date syrup is collected very early morning from the top of a date tree and then the syrup is boiled and processed for a long time to make the molasses. But the authenticity and the scent can not be compared with any other item.

To keep the tradition of our originality of winter I prefer to make Nalen gurer sondesh or sweet made from date molasses. I often buy date molasses from Bangladeshi store. But this item is not available in all parts of the world. So I thought of making it this time without the date molasses. Believe me friends, the taste really does not vary much. I have made it with date molasses and also without it, the taste really does not differ a lot. So people who are not getting date molasses can confidently substitute it with brown sugar. Let me share the recipe below:


Ingredients:

1. Ricotta cheese: 2 lb or 1 Kg
2. Khoya: 341 gms
3. Brown sugar: 1 lb
or Date molasses: 1/2lb

Steps:

1. Shred the khoya block to get crumbled khoya.
2. Grease a deep and heavy bottomed  pan with clarified butter or ghee. Put it on heat.
3. Add ricotta cheese on the pan. Who does not have access to ricotta cheese they can make it from home made cottage cheese or chhana. After making the cottage cheese, strain the sour water from it by washing it with cold water once or twice and then strain the water with a cheese cloth.
4. When the ricotta cheese melts in the pan, add the shredded khoya to the pan. Stir it well.
5. You need to keep stirring for long untill they mix it well and starts drying up. You need to ensure that it never sticks to the bottom. So you need to be patient for some time. I have cooked it on medium heat.
6. Add brown sugar or date molasses to the pan now and mix it very well. It will again add some liquid to the pan. You need to continuously stir and mix it well with ricotta cheese and khoya until it dries up. When you see that it has dried up and no liquid is left, and you think that you can form sondesh from it, switch the heat off. 
7. Cool the mix for 5 minutes. Grease your mold with butter or ghee. I recently bought some silicon molds online. I love them. Now take a 1 tablespoon of mix from the pan and put it in the mold. Press the mix lightly to the mold so that mixture gets the print and shape of the mold. Then take the mold off the mixture slowly. Repeat the procedure until the whole mixture is exhausted. If you don't have mold, just use your hand to form a flat ball. You can garnish the balls with raisin or cashew nut.
8. Refrigerate for couple of hours and you can start eating right away. The left over can be stored in refrigerator for some days until they are over.

Your sondesh is ready to serve.

Enjoy!!!!!!