Chocolate Sandesh is a soft, sweet dish prepared with fresh chenna specially made in occasions in West Bengal during Durga Puja and Diwali
Ingredients For Chocolate Sandesh:-
- One Litre – Milk(full fat)
- Two Tablespoons – Lemon Juice
- One Teaspoon – Clarified Butter
- Six – Tablespoons – Powdered Sugar
- One Tablespoon – Cocoa Powder
- Eight – Pistachios(finely chopped)
Directions For Making Chenna:-
- Heat milk in a heavy bottomed vessel and bring to a boil. Reduce heat to low.
- Whisk curd till smooth and slowly allow it to trickle into the hot milk and keep stirring continuously. Don’t add all the lemon juice at once.
- The milk will begum curding with milk solids forming along with a greenish color thin liquid called whey. If the milk does not curdle after adding the lemon juice add some more juice to curdle it. Turn off the heat.
- Immediately add eight to ten ice cubes to the vessel to stop the milk solids from cooking further. Allow resting for five minutes.
- Take an empty vessel and place a sieve over it. Cover the sieve with a wet muslin cloth and pour the curdled milk into it.
- The whey will collect the bottom of the vessel and the curdled milk solids(also called chenna) will remain on the top.
- Keep aside the collected whey that can be used to knead as chapati dough.
- Pour two to three cups of water over the chenna to wash off any sourness that it might have.
- Bring the edges of the cloth on all four corners and gently squeeze the milk solids two to three times so that excess liquid is removed.
- Now tie a knot so that you can hang it at a height for the excess liquid to drain. Leave it aside for twenty minutes. Your chenna is ready.
Directions For Making Sandesh:-
- Now knead the chenna for seven to eight minutes. Add powdered sugar and cocoa powder and knead again for five minutes.
- Heat clarified butter in a wide shallow pan. Add the kneaded chenna mixture and cook on the very low heat. You will see that the mixture will let out moisture and gets mushy and sticky.
- Keep stirring on low heat and allow the mixture to come together like a mass. It will start to leave the sides of the pan with a bit of moisture retained.
- Do not let it get crumbly or too dry. Turn off the heat and allow the mixture to cool a bot but it should be warm.
- Knead the cooked chenna mixture gently for a minute, make small balls of the mixture and lightly flatten them or you can use a mold to shape them.
- Garnish with finely chopped pistachios. Serve your Chocolate Sandesh chilled or at room temperature.