Ras Malai
December 2nd, 2007 filed under Desserts, Gluten Free
Rasmalai is a Bengali dessert consisting of soft paneer balls immersed in chilled creamy milk. Like Rasgullas, Rasmalai is also made with homemade cheese known as “paneer” or “chana”. Instead of being soaked in sugar syrup like Rasgullas, Rasmalai is soaked in sweet, flavored milk.
Makes 12.
Ingredients for Rasmalai Patties:
- 4 cups milk
- 1/4 cup lemon juice
- 1 1/2 cups sugar
- 4 1/2 cups water
- Pressure cooker
Ingredients for Milk mixture:
- 3 cups of milk
- 2 1/2 tablespoons of sugar (adjust to your taste)
- 1/8 teaspoon crush cardamom
- 1 tablespoon sliced almonds and pistachios to garnish
Method:
Paneer:
- Mix lemon juice in half a cup of hot water and keep aside.
- Boil the milk in a heavy bottomed over medium-high heat, stirring frequently making sure milk do not burn on the bottom of the pan.
- As the milk comes to a boil, add the lemon juice slowly and stir the milk gently. The curd will start separting from the whey, turn off the heat.
- Once the milk fat has separated from the whey, drain the whey using a strainer line with cheesecloth or muslin cloth.
- Wrap the curd in a muslin cloth, rince under cold water, and squeeze well. This process takes out the sourness from the lemon.
- To take out the excess water squeeze the cloth, or press the wrapped paneer under a heavy pan for about one hour. Taking the right amount of water out of the paneer is the most important part of this recipe.
- To check if enough water is out of the paneer, take a little piece of paneer on your palm and rub with your fingers. After rubbing the paneer for about 15-20 seconds, you should be able to make a firm but smooth ball.
- If the paneer is too dry, add a few drops of water, using the water squeezed from the paneer.
- Once the paneer is drained, place on a dry, clean surface and knead the paneer for 3-4 minutes until the paneer is almost rolls into smooth soft dough.
- Knead the paneer by dragging the palm of your hand hard on the paneer. Keep scooping it back to togather and knead more. Your palm will be little greasy.
Making the Rasmalai:
- Divide the dough into 12 equal parts and roll them in smooth balls.
- To make the balls apply some prassure at the first and then release when forming the balls, lightly press to make about 3/4″ patty shape.
- Mix the sugar and water in a pressure cooker on medium high heat and bring to a boil.
- Add the paneer balls and close the pressure cooker. After the pressure cooker starts steaming, turn the heat to medium and cook for about seven minutes.
- Make sure the cooker is large enough to accommodate the finished rasgullas patties, as they will expand to about double in the volume while cooking in the syrup!
- Close the heat and wait a few minutes befor opening the pressure cooker. Pour cold water over the cooker before opening.
- Take out the patties from the syrup and squeeze them lightly,and keep aside.
- Boil the milk in a frying pan on medium heat until the milk reduce to about 2 cups.
- Make sure to frequently stir the milk as the milk burns easily in bottom of the pan.
- Add the sugar and the Rasmalai patties in milk. Let it cook for few minutes.
- Add the cardamom and mix in. Garnish with sliced almonds and pistachios.
- Serve the Rasmalai chilled.
[...] Ras Malai is also made with the home made cheese balls or paneer. Instead of a simple syrup, the paneer is soaked in a sweet milk flavored with cardamom and garnished with almonds and/or pistachios. It was sooo good. Not something to make every day, but very enjoyable. Since I will not be able to visit India physically I can at least visit gastronomically and will continue to try new dishes.If you visit My Kitchen, My World you will be able to see what the other members made in this geographical challenge. LikeBe the first to like this post. [...]
Great post.I’m enjoy it.Thank U!
hello aunty,
today i make it, it’s looking yummy, tomorrow come my friends let hope they enjoy this sweetdish: -)))))))))))))
after they teaste it i will tell about how it become
thnks nd nameste
[...] very often here and that too fresh. I looked for recipes on internet and decide to go with Manjula’s kitchen which has a great collection of recipe for indian cuisine. And as you can see the outcome was [...]
hi manjula aunty,
my family loves your rassgulla recipe! it is excellent! thank you so much for posting these recipes.
Hi Mam,
I wanted to prepare Rasmalai on my hubby’s birth day. So I had bought ready Paneer from shop and started to prepare. I kneeded the paneer so that I can make balls out of it. After I prepared balls, as your recipe method I had put those balls in sugar syrup in pressure cooker. But after 2 or 3 mins, paneer balls broke and mixed in the syrup. I dont know why these balls broke. Instead of Rasmalai, I had to make khova out it. Please suggest what would have gone wrong here.
Regards,
Shwetha
Swetha, you must use homemade paneer for this dish.
The store bought paneer is best for adding to vegetable dishes. Homemade paneer is soft and can be kneaded to a silk like texture and then formed into the desired shape.
Make the paneer at home and have everything ready so that when the paneer is done, you can start kneading it WHILE IT’S STILL WARM. That’s one of the secrets. Don’t let the paneer get cold.
ur not a cook are yu….no so stop giving suggestions
I suggest to make the rasgulas with fresh paneer, they will be great, and is very easy to make. But instead of boiling the paneer balls in pressure cooker, cook them in a normal pot, covered with lid on medium high heat. I use to make the syrup much thinner then the recipe says, when boiling water evaporates and syrup will become at good amount of sweetness. Drop the rasgulas, when the syrup is fully boiling. In about 30 min they are ready, and they are super spongy and soft.
I saw this at sweets shops in West Bengal.
Dear Mam
Yesterday i prepared Rasmallai..and it turned very delicious.But i bought paneer from outside. Maybe i will try with home made paneer.
Thankyou for such a tasty Recepie.
Biji
Biji, see my answer above. Swetha had the same problem with using store bought paneer.
This recipe turned out pretty good. Although I will make a few changes the next time I make it:
The ras was a bit too light in consistency for my liking, I like the ras to be thick and creamy, so I would maybe use half n half milk next time…and cook it well…Also, I threw in a lot of pistachios and saffron in the ras to give it a nice flavor. I also needed to add more sugar to the ras to make it sweeter.
Lastly, I experienced some difficulty with the milk. I used whole organic milk to make the rasgullas, but the milk I used (Horizon) only left me with very little cheese after I strained it. So, do not use Horizon, if you do, you will have to use double the quantity, which is what I did….
On the whole, the recipe worked fine, the rasgullas came out really nice, and I’m proud to say that I can make ras malai at home now!
Thank you!
I did the Rasa Mallais directly boiling the paneer with adequate milk in the pressure cooker and it came out well
Thank you very much for your recipes
Dear madam,
i saw your videos of making both Rasagullas and RasaMallais,it both came out well.I did the Rasa Mallais directly boiling the paneer with adequate milk in the pressure cooker and it came out well
Thanks again