Chennar Payesh - Bengali Cottage Cheese Kheer

 Making Indian sweets are tedious tasks. They require time, effort and long hours of patience. Making sweets also require good quality unadulterated full fat cow milk. So making sweets in my little kitchen is a labour of love. When all the little pieces fall together in their right places and fit like a well arranged jig saw puzzle I take the day off from my daily chores and make sweets. My 5 year old son pulls out his small tool to reach the kitchen counter and helps me in making small cottage cheese balls or crumbling the cottage cheese or sometimes in mixing the nuts or sugar. And we spend hours in the process without speaking to each other, communicating just with our hands and gestures. The end result is not always as expected but they sure turn delicious every single time. 
There are two different versions of chennar payesh. In one the small cottage cheese balls are boiled in a sweetened thickened milk and in the other crumbled cottage cheese is added to the thickened sweetened milk with a lot of nuts. I prefer to make the second one as it has a much favourable probability of being ruined in the process. After staying in the fridge they reach a pudding like structure and the contrasting texture of creamy rabdi, soft crumbled cottage cheese and hard nuts make it a dessert like no other. 

Chennar Payesh / Bengali Cottage Cheese Kheer

Makes enough for 10 person

Ingredients:

3 litres of milk

1/2 cup of cashew

1/4 cup of almonds

1/4 cup of pistachios

1/2 cup of khoya

1 tsp saffron

250gm of white sugar

4 green cardamoms

1 tbsp white vinegar

250 ml of warm water

Method:

Step 1:

1. In a pot bring 1.5 litres of milk to a gentle boil.
2. In a jug mix the vinegar with the warm water.
3. Switch off the gas and slowly pour the vinegar water into the milk. Stir gently with a ladle until the mild curdles and separates from the whey.
4. Pour the milk through a cheesecloth lined strainer and gently drizzle enough room temperature water to bring the temperature of the cheese down.
5. Squeeze hard to get the water out and then place it under something heavy so that the excess moisture can trickle down quickly. 
6. After 15 minutes, take the cheese out in a bowl and crumble with fingers into small bite size pieces. Leave it at the kitchen counter covered.

Step 2

1. In a big pot bring the other 1.5 litres of milk to a rolling boil.
2. Switch the flame to low and simmer for 1 hour, scraping the sides and the bottom of the pan every few minutes, until the milk has reduced to its 1/3rd of the original quantity.
3. Add the khoya and the crumbles cheese to it. 
4. Gently stir and mix on low heat.
5. When the cheese is nicely mixed, add the sugar to it. Simmer and stir until the mixture becomes thick again. The mixture should be thick enough to have a scoopable texture.
6. Switch off the flame and add the saffron, green cardamom and half of the nuts.
7. Give it another mix and pour into a big bowl or smaller bowls of your choice. Let them come to room temperature and then pop them inside the fridge to chill for at least 4 hours before serving. Serve with more chopped nuts sprinkles on top.