Sunday, March 4, 2007

Sandesh


Being a travel freak I spent a month in Kolkata, exploring the city and its attractions. A city rich in culture and traditions. Kolkata is a place in West Bengal located in Eastern India. The place is famous for Durga Poojas, Rasgullas and most importantly very friendly people. The place is full of celebrations and colors year around.

Sandesh is one of the Sweets made here and I have no words to explain its taste. It’s simply a white cloud of heaven, which melts in your mouth. I couldn’t resist having it almost everyday. Ever since I have tried making it and once for all I am successful.
Usually it’s made with Paneer, the cheese commonly used in Indian household. paneer in the initial stage of its formation has a lot of moisture in it and at this stage, is mixed with other ingredients to make Sandesh. The name itself is such a treat. Being in US I have invented that I could make it with our very friendly Italian cheese “Ricotta”.




Ingredients

2 cups of ricotta cheese
3 tbsp of condensed milk
1tbsp milk powder
½ tsp all purpose flour
3 to 4 tbsp of sugar



Preparation


Mix all the ingredients together to form a paste like consistency and then transfer it into a thick-bottomed pan.
With mild heat keep stirring it all the time.
Remove from the heat when the mixture leaves the sides of the pan.
When it cools a little bit (warm enough to be held in hands) make small balls and decorate them with dry fruits.
You can even try them by making paneer at home but I was not very successful. If any of you have some more ideas about making sandesh please share with me.



21 comments:

naheemu said...

hey i will definitely ask shabu to try this sometimes at home..she is good at cooking .. u know i am crazy abt food and luv sweets... she will luv too .. we get paneer here .. can we replace Ricotta with paneer directly?? or you have any other instruction for Paneer??

i have noticed another thing.. who is taking the photographs.. he is really good at those ..it looks so professional and u r good at food styling too .. i remember working on a project for a company here to create the packaging material for their food products..

naemu

naheemu said...

Hi Sharmi..

Try out this site too .. will be useful..recipes from this part of the world.. this is our site ...

http://www.nestle-family.com/

Try Nestle Laziz for Desserts and Maggi for recipes/cuisines of the world..

Happy cooking/blogging ...

naemu

Padma said...

Hey Sharmi, this looks fantastic and so simple to treat our frens....
Good Job!, I hope its not loaded with calories, though!

Looking forward for many more yummy recipes....

eroomje said...

The recipe sounds delicious! And easy to make! I will have to try it. My dh loves sweets!
Ellen

Mishmash ! said...

Hi Sharmi, Found you thru Trupti's. And this is the second time I come across a sandesh recipe. as u rightly wrote, its a white cloud of heaven :)

Shn

bee said...

gorgeous blog. have added you to my blogroll. - bee

FH said...

Very easy recipe and looks gorgeous.Glad I found your blog thru' Trupti.

Sharmi said...

Dear Bee
thank you so much for adding me to your blogroll! thats a great compliment to me.

Swapna said...

Are you a Bengali? I love Sandesh..Once I ate mango sandesh, it's yummier than the original one.Hey, you can take a look at my other blog too.http://swadofindia.blogspot.com/
Swaps

Kay said...

Wow! Your Sandesh looks yummy! I had been to a Bengali wedding recently and Sandesh is definitely very yummy!

Kribha said...

I've heard of sandesh before ,but never really tried it. I'd love to eat milk sweets at any time of the day. Will try yours sometime. Beautiful presentation. Could you send me some please?

Jim Stein said...

A friend made some sandesh with your recipe and it was fantastic.

I wanted to print this recipe to make it myself, but the page doesn't print well. Maybe you could add a PRINT button that would create a page that is formatted for printing.

Sharmi said...

Hello Jim,

Thanks on visiting the BLOG. Long way to get to Print option on my BLOG. Suggestion considered. Yet to have it on my BLOG.
However, One way I can provide you a solution on your question. You can use the PDF Creator software which is a freeware to create a PDF and then print it. This would only take 2 min job after installing the software.

Thanks once again.

Raaga said...

I will try this :-)

Apple said...

Delicious Sweet Sharmi...This reminds me of the movie Devdas(new)...

amygzzus said...

Hi~~ I made Sandesh with your lovely recipe~~ They turned out so good~ especially when mixed with electric blender~~

catch_a_falling_star said...

making paneer at home is easy...you can use white vinegar and just need to make sure that you boil the milk before adding the vinegar. also removing the curdled milk from the stove is crucial since that will determine how soft/hard the paneer will be.

Unknown said...

I tried your recipe...I heated the mixture for about 5-6 minutes, but it doesn't come together at all. What did I do wrong?

Sharmi said...

Nirali, I think you made the mix to cook for longer time where it became a little dry so that it can not combine together. Add some water and all purpose flour to make it again. hope it helps.

HappyStar said...

Hi, I was looking online for a simple sandesh recipe and came across your site. I was very excited to try the recipe and gave it a shot a couple days back. Unfortunately, I ran into the same issue stated in the previous comment about the mixture not forming into the right consistency. It seemed like before heating the mixture, it had more of the consistency to form into sandesh than after heating. After heating, it just kind of turned into mush.

The pictures you put look perfect and I wish it would have worked out the same way...i'm also wondering what may have gone wrong...

Sharmi said...

@HappyStar, if the consistency is to sticky add little more milk powder, add some ghee to your hands and a little ghee to the mixture to get good shapes hope this works out for you!