Chanar Payesh is a love story between perfectly cooked, melt-in-the-mouth chana and thickened milk. A decadent dessert that tastes like heaven in every spoonful.
Making chana sweets at home is not a usual practice for most Bengali households. Bengali sweets made of fresh cottage cheese (chana) are not as easy as some of them look to be. However, some of the reasons you would want to make chana sweets could be when you don’t get them in good quality from nearby Bengali sweet shops, or living abroad where you don’t have access to them, or on special occasions that demand some Bengali sweets.
I made Chanar Payesh for the first time on a Bengali New Year’s Day. Then the recipe has improved over the years, and how I make it now tastes exactly like the sweet shop ones.
Chanar Payesh is not a regular sweet like Rosogolla that you would get in every sweet shop in Kolkata. Some old sweet shops make it on an everyday basis. A generations-old sweet shop Madan Mohan at Sodepur (my home town), makes it, and if you taste their Chanar Payesh once, it will be on your list of favourites.
Chanar Payesh, as the name suggests, gives us an idea that making this mishti (Bengali word for sweets/desserts) is fairly easy. First, you make chana and then add the fresh chana to the sweetened milk, and the dessert gets ready in no time. Here’s the catch, the sweet shops hardly make any sweet straight away with the fresh chana. After making the fresh chana, they cook the chana further, they never use it in its raw form. When the chana gets cooked further, the texture of it becomes better, and the taste profile gets enhanced. The sweet makers simmer the chana over low heat for Sandesh, or they boil the chana in different forms in the sugar syrup to make sweets. However, in the end, the chana gets cooked first, and then made into sweets.
For Chanar Payesh, the same practice is followed. Though making this dessert is relatively simple because you don’t need to shape the chana as you would be doing for other sweets. If you love Chanar Payesh just like me and want to make some at home, you’ll enjoy trying this recipe. 🙂
Bengali sweet shop style Chanar Payesh/Cottage Cheese Pudding
Make Bengali sweet shop style delectable, melt-in-the-mouth Chanar Payesh at home in a way you’ve never tried before.
Ingredients
For Chana / Fresh Cottage Cheese
- 1½ litre- Full fat milk, or make it with 200g Malai Paneer (read notes)
- Lemon juice from 1 lemon
- 1 tsp- Cornstarch or Corn flour
For Sugar syrup
- 215g / 1 cup- White sugar
- 4 cups/1 litre- Water
For Thickened milk
- 500ml- Full fat milk
- 150g- White sugar or Khejur gur (read notes)
- 4- Green cardamoms (make a powder of the cardamom seeds, read notes)
- For garnishing- Chopped nuts, dried rose petals (optional)
Instructions
Preparing the Chana
-
In a deep-bottomed pan, add 1½ litre milk. Let it boil over high heat, once boiled, lower the heat, add the lemon juice and stir well, the milk will begin to curdle, and chana and whey will start to separate at this stage. Stir the chana gently with a spatula and add some tap water (up to 1 cup). Give this a quick boil over high heat, and again lower the heat. This way all the milk fat will separate nicely from the whey. And at the end, you will get to see the clear whey.
-
Line a big bowl with muslin cloth/cheese cloth. Drain the whole cheese+whey mixture on this. Now tie the loose ends of the cheesecloth and place it under running water to wash away the lemony smell. Squeeze it well to discard the extra water from chana/cottage cheese. Care should be taken not to dry the chana completely, it should be moist.
-
Transfer the chana to a clean plate and knead it gently with your palm for the next 2-3 minutes, or until smooth. Sprinkle cornflour over the kneaded chana and incorporate again by kneading it lightly. Don’t knead the chana for a longer time, otherwise, it will start to release its fat (oil), and that way the quality of the dessert will be compromised.
-
Before you work further on the chana, start making the sugar syrup.In a wide, deep-bottomed pan (kadai), add sugar and water (mentioned for the sugar syrup), and boil the syrup over high heat until the sugar melts.
-
In between, divide the chana into small portions like small sugar cubes, no need to give them perfect shapes, just portioning them would be enough.
-
Drop the chana portions into the boiling sugar syrup and cook uncovered over high heat for 10 minutes. Next, cook for 5 minutes more by covering the pan, keeping the lid slightly open from the side so that the steam can escape. Within this time, the chana portions will expand a little bit and get cooked thoroughly. Some of the chana portions might scatter in the syrup during the cooking, which is completely fine for this recipe. Turn off the heat, and let the chana cool completely in the syrup.
-
After the chana cools down, drain them through a mesh strainer and leave the chana there so the syrup drains well. Do not touch the chana or try to squeeze them with a spoon, etc. to drain out the syrup.
-
When the chana is over the strainer, prepare the milk for Payesh.
-
To speed up the process, you can do this step a day ahead. After cooking the chana, it can be stored with the syrup in the refrigerator. Next day, you can do the rest of the process to make Chanar Payesh. Then the dessert gets ready quickly.
Preparing the Payesh
-
In a deep-bottomed pan (a nonstick saucepan works best), add 500ml milk.
-
Boil over high heat, once it boils lower the heat.
-
Add the sugar and cardamom powder.
-
Mix and keep stirring the milk continuously over low-medium heat with a spatula until it is reduced to ¾ of its quantity.
-
Turn off the heat.
-
At this stage, you can keep the saucepan under a ceiling fan for faster cooling of the milk.
-
The chana needs to be added to the lukewarm milk, not hot. So, when the milk reaches the correct temperature, transfer the chana gently to it with the help of a slotted spoon.
-
Stir the payesh gently to mix the chana. You don’t need to stir it too much, because chana will eventually absorb the milk as the Payesh sets. Keep the Payesh at room temperature to cool down completely. After that, transfer to the refrigerator and chill for 2 hours before you serve it.
-
If you prefer you can garnish Chanar Payesh with chopped nuts, dried rose petals, etc.
-
Serve the delectable Chanar Payesh cold or at room temperature, enjoy!
Recipe Notes
- If you want to skip the fresh chana-making step, you can use Malai Paneer to make Chanar Payesh. Don’t make it with branded packaged paneer. Use the best quality soft, fresh Malai Paneer that you can get from the sweet or dairy shop near you.
- The amount of sugar I used in the thickened milk can be reduced or increased according to your liking. Always remember that the cooked chana will be sweetened, so add sugar to the Payesh accordingly.
- If you’ve Khejur Gur/Date palm Jaggery with you, then you can replace the sugar with it for an elevated taste.
- If you’re using Khejur Gur, omit the cardamom powder because this gur has its own pleasant, distinct aroma.
The serving bowls are very nice…where did you get them ? Recipe is awesome !!
Hi Madhuja, Thank you. 🙂 The bowls I got from Surajkund Crafts Fair.