Chanar Sandesh-Indian Cottage Cheese Sweet Meat

Today I will be sharing the recipe of Chanar Sandesh with all of you as prepared at our home. Chanar Sandesh is one of the most popular sweets in India and originates in the Bengal region. Chana means Cheese and there are variety of Sandesh, but this one is prepared with Indian cottage cheese and hence the name.

So let's begin.

Firstly assemble the following ingredients and equipment:

2 liters of full cream milk
2 lemons
400 grams ground sugar
Muslin/fine cloth
A vessel of choice to boil milk in
A heavy bottomed vessel
A stirrer
A huge Plate
Some saffron strands

And lots of muscle power.

First of all bring the milk to boil and in the meantime juice the lemons. After the milk has come to a boil, take out 2 tablespoons of milk from it. Now for the remaining milk, lower the temperature of the milk by taking it off the stove. after few minutes add the lemon juice to split the milk.
Once the milk has split the shreds of cheese will separate and you will get a greenish liquid. Drain the liquid with the help of the cloth and hang the cloth with the cheese in it for half an hour for excess water to come out (keep that water to be used as stock for your other dishes).

Meanwhile soak the saffron strands 2 tablespoons of warm milk and let it cool down for use later.

After ½ an hour take out the cheese from the cloth and start kneading it with the sugar, knead it really finely to a near paste like texture.
Now an important point here, the ratio of sugar to cheese should be 1:1, for me 2 liters of milk yielded 400 gms of cheese, therefore i have used 400 gms of sugar here.
Now that you have an almost paste like consistency, transfer to a heavy bottomed vessel on low heat and keep stirring till the paste thickens, however, ensure that it should not dry out.
Now add the saffron milk and mix it in evenly, turn off the heat.

Transfer the mixture to a plate coated with clarified butter or butter and let the mixture cool down enough for you to touch without burning your finger and palms.

Apply some water on your palm and take out lumps from the mixture and form ball shapes of about an inch in diameter. Traditionally we use wooden molds to give various shapes like conch shells etc., but since we don't have this at home we will form round or roundish shapes, you can go crazy with the shapes if you want.

After you have formed the balls, your Sandesh is ready to serve once cooled down. These Sandesh can be stored in refrigerator for upto 3 days or until you finish them, which ever is earlier.

ENJOY your Chanar Sandesh.