Bengali Chanar Jilipi Recipe
Chanar Jilipi is a very popular Bengali Sweet from India's eastern state of West Bengal. Chanar Jilipi is an Indian sweetmeat made with fresh cottage cheese of cow's milk mixed with semolina and flour, shaped into a 'figure 8 knot' followed by deep frying and soaking in a simple syrup. This is a very popular Bengali sweet dish and can be found at most of the sweet shops selling Indian sweets or Mithai.
Servings 10 pieces
Calories 163kcal
Equipment
- Stove Top
- Heavy bottom Non-stick Pan
- Mixing Bowl
Ingredients
- 600 ml Cow's Milk
- 1 Lemon
- 2 tbsp All Purpose Flour
- 1 tbsp Semolina or Sooji
- ½ tsp Baking Soda
- 4 tbsp Milk
- 1 tsp Ghee
- Ghee or Oil to fry
- 1 cup Sugar
- 1 cup Water
- 1 Green Cardamom Pod
Instructions
To make Chena or Chana
- Bring the milk to a rolling boil first. Once it is there, add the juice of a lemon into the milk. Here, I have used 600ml of Cow's Milk and that required the juice of one golf ball-sized lemon. Add the juice gradually. Once you see that the cheese has curdled and whey left underneath is pale green in colour, stop adding the juice.
- Turn off the heat. Take a cheesecloth and lay it on top of a sieve. Now, pour the contents of the milk pan into it. I would suggest you collect the whey underneath the sieve, as it is rich in nutrients.
- Gather the ends of the cheesecloth and let it sit on the sieve overnight to get rid of the moisture. If you live in a colder region, you may leave it on your kitchen counter, otherwise, keep it in the refrigerator.
To make Sugar Syrup
- ake sugar and water in a sauce pan and gently bring it to a boil. Keep stirring so that the sugar is dissolved completely. Once you see that there are no more sugar crystals left, switch off the heat. Drop in the cardamom pods and stir.
To make Chanar Jilipi
- Take the chena or cottage cheese in a mixing bowl and knead it for 8-10 minutes to make it smooth and supple
- Add the rest of the ingredients in it like All-Purpose Flour, Semolina and Baking Soda and knead it again
- Add Milk to make the dough moist and pliable to form the shape of Chanar Jilipi. it should be kind of a sticky dough as shown here. It took somewhere around 4 tablespoons of milk to get the perfect dough.
- Add a teaspoon of Ghee to help you work with the dough
- Divide the dough into 10 equal portions. Take each portion and roll it long on your kitchen counter
- Once it is somewhere around 7cms, take the ends and bring them together at the centre. Pinch the ends tightly so that they do not unfurl while frying
- Now, fry them in oil/ghee on very low heat. Once they turn brown, take them out and dunk them in Sugar Syrup. Let them soak for an hour or so before serving.
Video
Notes
