Rajbhog

Raj bhog is a two layered Bengali sweet with a khoya core and a rosogolla (rasgulla) type shell. The name literally means that it’s for the kings palate and is a desert worthy of the kings. If you put in the right effort you will be rewarded handsomely. If you can find an actual king to feed this to, you might even get a bag of gold coins. At least that’s the story I told my daughter. Here goes another recipe of Rajbhog from Chitrangada’s blog.

Ingredients

For The Outer Shell Of Rajbhog

• 2 liter full fat milk
• 1/4 cup white vinegar or juice of 1 large lime
• 1 tbsp. sooji (Semolina )
• 1 tbsp. all purpose flour (Maida)
• 1/2 tsp. saffron strands soaked in 1 tbsp. milk

For The Stuffing

• 4tbsp. grated khoya (unsweetened milk powder can also be used)
• 6-8 pistachio pods blanched
• 5-6 raw cashew
• 1/4 tsp. green cardamom powder

For Sugar Syrup

• 2 cups sugar
• 4+1 cup water
• 1/4 tsp. saffron strand
• 3-4 green cardamoms bruised

Procedure

Boil milk in a heavy bottom pan.Stir continuously to avoid any scalding at the bottom. As the milk comes to a rolling boil reduce the heat and slowly add vinegar or lime juice to it. Keep stirring till the milk curdles and you can see the transparent whey. Line a colander with cheese cloth and strain the curdled milk. Gently hold the colander under cold running water to wash off any residual acid.

Bring all the corners of the cheesecloth together and tie up the cheese cloth containing the solid curdled milk. Squeeze it with your hand to drain the excess whey out of it.

Transfer the cottage cheese to a flat tray and add semolina, flour and saffron milk to it and mix very well.

Knead the mixture with heel of your palm for 4-5 minutes to make a smooth lump free dough.

Divide the dough into 12 - 14 equal parts and roll them in between your wet hands to form balls. Cover these cheese balls with a wet kitchen towel to avoid any loss of moisture.

Dry grind cashew and pistachio into a fine powder and then mix them to the rest of the ingredients listed under Stuffing. 

Mix all the ingredients together to form a soft dough. 

Divide the stuffing into 12-14 equal parts and roll them in between your palms to make small balls.

Stuff each cheese balls with a stuffing at its center and make outer shell of cheese   smooth so that they don’t break during cooking. Cover them with a wet kitchen towel.

Make sure you are using a large enough container for sugar syrup to accommodate all the cheese balls as the cheese balls when cooked will swell up to 1.5 times of their original size.

In a deep sauce pan boil sugar with 4 cups of water. Keep one extra cup of water warm to make the boiling syrup thinner while cooking. Add green cardamom pods, saffron to the syrup and let the syrup boil. when the syrup comes to a rolling boil drop the cheese balls carefully. Reduce heat to medium and cook them covered.

Keep an eye so the syrup doesn’t start to thicken. Add ladle full of warm water(the extra one cup) in between to keep the consistency of the syrup right. It will take almost 30-40 minutes (Depending on the size of the cheese balls) for the cheese balls to get cooked.

After 30-40 minutes switch off heat and let the rajbhog cool down in the syrup for at least 5-6 hrs. Serve them cold or as I like warm them up in microwave for 20 seconds before you serve.

I don’t carry any nostalgia of Rajbhog since I don’t like sweets other than very few like Rasgulla and Mishti Doi. The lovely pictures of Rajbhog in Chitrangada’s blog literraly pushed me into making this. Here goes her recipe link.