Sweets are something you never get bored of. There are so many varieties available, we need a lifetime to taste them all. With very less ingredients you can actually prepare yum laden sweets. Though Bengal is famous for sweets, the other been fish, it was not in my priority list till may be I was caught with diabetes. For the past 4 years or so I am crazily in to sweets, homemade or otherwise. I think the story is same in most of the homes. Be it Durga Puja, Diwali or Eid, we have too much of it. Yes, I am facing all post festive effects of having too much sweets. Like me, many others, I bet. Does it stop us from loving it? No way, its in our genes to grab it and have it. Though its true....'A sweet a day, brings us closer to the doctor anyway'.
As I believe, balance in life is very important. Why do we need to leave sweets altogether for a healthy life? We will have it but in moderation. Taste bud satisfied and health restored. Having a sweet once a week will not kill us. We should not leave the world with the regret that we wanted to eat this or do this and we did not. That is a sort of torture on our soul. Do whatever you wish to but staying within limits. We need not deprive ourselves from the simple pleasures of life, there will not be a second one.
Yes, all this while I was and am trying to promote and establish the simple philosophy of living your life to your heart's content maintaining balance and drawing a line wherever and whenever required. Well everybody knows it, I just jotted down. I prefer homemade sweets. They are easy to make using all ingredients available at home. Just a little patience is required. Whenever there is abundance of chocolate at home, I plan a dessert or sweet with it. The festive season was round the corner, so whats better than Chocolate Sandesh, I thought. You just see so little ingredients have been used to prepare this.
INGREDIENTS :
Milk : 2 lt.
Chocolate : 2[175gm bar]
Sugar : 2tbsp
Condensed Milk : 50 ml
Lemon Juice : 1/4 small cup
Ice Cubes : 1 coffee mug
Chopped Pistachios to garnish
PROCEDURE :
Pour the milk in a heavy bottomed pan. Switch on your gas and put the milk for boil. Get the juice of the lemon. Once the milk comes to boil, pour in the lemon juice. As soon as the milk starts curdling, switch of the gas and put in the ice cubes to avoid extreme curdling which may cause the paneer to get hard.
With help of a clean white cloth strain the water. Hang the cloth with paneer for about 1 hour. The water should go but the paneer should remain moist.Take out the paneer and place in a large bowl.
Mash the paneer for 10-15 minutes. Heat a wok, add the paneer. Stir at low heat for 8 minutes. Add the sugar and condensed milk. Keep stirring till the water almost dries up.
Add the chocolate. Stir well till it gets oily and sticky. At this stage you can add chopped almonds if you wish to. Switch off gas.
Transfer the mixture into a round serving plate. Let cool a bit.
Now mash it for 3-4 minutes before shaping into sandesh.
Take out small portions and shape as you wish. We get about 18-20 medium sized sandesh from the amount mentioned.
Serve while still little warm, it is enjoyed the best.... fresh.
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