All about "red and white" cuisine

Bengali Cuisine-3

 

In this blog we are going to talk about the most interesting part of any cuisine i.e. dessert. For dessert we always have some vacant space in our tummy, isn’t it? We, Indians especially believe that one cannot complete a meal without having a sweet dish!

When dessert is served at the end, it helps us to digest our food, and also keep us stick to our dinning place till it is served. Maybe, this must be the reason of keeping it at the end. After all, good things take time! Generally, all the menus contain dessert names at the end, but if you are a follower of Ayurveda then you must have it before taking the meal. It keeps our health in a good shape as our body cannot do without sweets.

Let’s talk about the Bengali sweets; they are mostly made up of chenna (i.e. cheese curds) and then further combined with corn flour/Maida and sugar/jaggery. These are the key ingredients of Bengali sweets. When they combine together to recreate a sweet magic; that magic helps us to satiate our taste buds.

Bengali cuisine has abundant varieties of sweets which will surely make you drool. If you have a sweet tooth then you have landed on the right place. After reading this article about scrumptious Bengali sweets, you will definitely crave for a dessert!  That’s guaranteed!    

In this blog I have listed some of the “Famous Bengali sweets/desserts” (I tried to keep it short but Bengali chaps are way too smart, they tricked me with so many yummy sweet dishes that I just cannot decide which one to keep and which one to delete). I have also shared the ingredients of each sweet with you, so in case you crave to have it and have all the ingredients at home then why not make it yourself! I am also planning to share the recipes in my next story. Anyways, let’s get started:

•       Chom Chom  

This dessert comes in numerous shapes and types like round Chom chom with pistachio filling, flat Chom chom with malai filling, pink Chom chom with grated coconut garnish, laal (red) chom chom, white chom chom etc.

Ingredients (basic): Chenna, all purpose flour, sugar, cardamom powder (optional).

•       Roshogulla

This dessert needs no description, because if you will talk about Bengali cuisine and dessert (to be specific), the very first name that comes to our mind is “Roshogolla”. A soft spongy Bengali delicacy dipped in sugar syrup (chashni) is what makes us drool.

Ingredients: Chenna, all purpose flour/corn flour, sugar syrup.

•      Chennar golla

This dessert is also called as “Malai ladoo” as it is so soft that it melts in your mouth just like that. The name of the sweet already suggests the key ingredient of this one, so I am assuming you already got to know about it.

•      Rajbhog

It is also a kind of Roshogulla which is yellow in color and has a filling of nuts and Mawa in it. Rajbhog is a royal dish. The rich texture of this sweet says it all.

       Ingredients: Chenna, sugar, yellow or saffron food colour, kesar (saffron), pistachio, almonds, mawa(khoya).

•       Malpua

It is kind of syrupy small pancake dipped in sugar syrup and can be served with kheer or rabri. It’s a kind of fried dessert which is then further dipped in sugary syrup.

Ingredients: Maida, sugar, rava (semolina), milk, desi ghee(clarified butter).

•     Shondesh

Shondesh comes in varieties like gur (jaggery) shondesh, Rosh bhora ( jaggery syrup filled shondesh), white sondesh (the typical one), mango sandesh etc.

Ingredients: Chenna(crumbled paneer) , sugar/jaggery, khoya(optional) , cardamom powder.

•       Lady Kenny (ledikeni)

Lady Kenny is a type of Gulab jamun which is cylindrical in shape and it’s much tender than Gulab jamun, as it is made of crumbled paneer (chenna) and maida.

Ingredients: Chenna (crumbled paneer), sugar, cardamom powder, desi ghee, and maida.

•      Lobongo lotika (long latika)

Bengalis can have sweets anytime and anywhere. So, if you are thinking to have something as a evening snack with your cup of hot tea. Pack some on the way to home, these are sweet tea-time snacks. This flaky, deep-fried, sugar-syrup-coated pastry is filled with mawa and nuts, nicely folded and pinned with a clove.

Ingredients: Maida (all purpose flour), Mawa (khoya), nuts, sugar, clove, desi ghee.

•      Gurer chaler payesh (Jaggery rice kheer)

Bengalis use special kind of rice to make this kheer i.e. gobindobhog. This rice pudding (kheer) is cooked with jaggery instead of sugar. This is cooked on almost every occasion like Durga puja,  Laxmi puja, Saraswati puja, birthdays, marriages etc.They use  specific jaggery to make this kheer namely nolen gur or khejur gur.

Ingredients: Gobindobhog rice, jaggery(nolen/khejur), milk, nuts.

You can find these delicacies in Market 1, C.R.Park, New Delhi.

if you haven't watched Bengali cuisine -1 and Bengali cuisine-2, do have a look on them and give your valuable comments.

till then Happy Burping!!