Chhanar Jilipi / Chhena Jalebi - Fried sweetmeat made of cottage cheese drunken with sugar syrup

This post is late by more than a week. It was supposed to be uploaded immediately after 14^th June’13, the day of Jamai Shoshthi. I had made this quintessential Bengali sweet for the first time that day and had dared to try because the day was so special to my hubby.

Jamai Shoshthi is a traditional Bengali ritual with a slight religious touch where the son-in-law is pampered and fed by his mother-in-law. In our decade long married life, my mother has managed to be with us during this occasion a couple of times. Needless to say, both the times, she took excellent care of my hubby.

In her absence, this great responsibility, very naturally comes upon me. I, being a passionately-foodie and love-to-cook type person, welcome this opportunity to cook up a delectable spread, which my whole family relish.

This time, though I had cooked a range of mutton, fish and typical Bengali shaak-shukto, I wanted to make something sweet for him and zeroed in on Chhanar Jilipi or Chhena Jalebi.  This is a jalebi, but unlike the traditional fermented besan made one, it is made with Chhana (cottage cheese) mixed with Khoya (dried up milk).

Ingredients

For Jilipis:

Paneer(Chana) – freshly prepared  from 2 litres of milk
Khoya – ½ cup
Maida – 4 tbsp
Sooji (semolina) – 2 tbsp

Baking powder – ½ tsp
Cardamom powder – 1 tsp
Oil for frying

For sugar syrup:

Sugar 3 cup
Water 3 cup

Cardamom powder – 1tsp

Method

Prepare chhana freshly at  home adding a Tbsp of lemon juice or vinegar in boiling milk. Drain the excess water and run tap water through the chhana to get the smell of lemon/vinegar from it. Try to get out all excess water out of it.

Take chhana and khoya in a flat bottomed vessel and mix well. Rub it continuously with your palm and knead it for quite sometime till it becomes a soft & smooth dough without any lump and doesn’t stick in hand.

Add maida , semolina and cardamom powder and baking powder and knead it well to form a soft and smooth dough.

Keep the dough  in a bowl covered by a moist cloth or cling film. Put the bowl in room temperature for 1 ½ - 2 hours.

Divide the dough into  equal sized round balls . Now roll each balls with your palm into a long thick  rope. Coil the rope into  one and half turn leaving small space in between, as shown in the picture.

Heat oil in a pan and when it’s smoking hot, put the flame in low. Slowly drop the jilipis in oil and deep fry till they turn golden yellow.

Prepare the sugar syrup with putting sugar and water in given ratio and by boiling the syrup till the sugar gets melted completely with the consistency is near to one string. Put some crushed cardamom in the syrup.

Take out the fried jilipis from the pan and drop into the warm syrup and keep them fully immersed in it for 3 to 4 hours.

Juicy Chhanar Jilipis are ready to be served as sweet ending to a sumptuous meal.