Cuisine: Odisha
Category: Dessert
Prep: 20 min
Cook: 20 min
Serves: 6
Difficulty: Medium
🌿 Vegetarian
Deep-fried diamond-shaped cottage cheese pieces soaked in a light sugar syrup — the crispy-on-outside, soft-on-inside sweet from Puri's legendary sweet shops.
Ingredients
- For the chhena:
- 1 litre full-fat milk — curdled with 2 tbsp lemon juice to make fresh chhena
- 2 tbsp fine semolina (sooji)
- 2 tbsp sugar
- 1/4 tsp cardamom powder
- For the syrup:
- 1 cup sugar
- 1/2 cup water
- A pinch of cardamom powder
- Oil for deep frying
Method
- Transfer immediately from oil to the warm syrup. Soak 3 to 4 minutes.
- Make chhena: boil 1 litre full-fat milk. Add lemon juice.
- Stir until it curdles completely. Drain through a muslin cloth.
- Hang 30 minutes to drain all whey. The chhena should be soft and slightly moist.
- Knead the chhena with semolina, sugar and cardamom powder for 5 to 6 minutes until smooth and slightly elastic.
- The semolina helps it hold shape during frying.
- Divide into small portions. Shape each into a rectangular or diamond shape about 4 cm long and 2 cm wide.
- Make the syrup: boil sugar with water until one-string consistency. Add cardamom. Keep warm.
- Heat oil for deep frying on medium-low. Fry the shaped chhena pieces in batches on medium-low for 4 to 5 minutes until golden on all sides.
- Remove from syrup. Serve slightly warm.