Ajoy wanted me to make this for Dasara but ended up getting the raw material (aka milk) quite late on sunday. So I made it yesterday. It has turned fabulous and the sweetness is perfect not too sweet not too bland..


Ingredients
2 Liter Milk
2 Spoon Vinegar
1 Pinch of Saffron
1/4 Spoon Cardamom Powder
1/4 Cup Almonds
1/4 Cup Pistachios
3 Cup Sugar

Method

• Boil 1 liter of milk in a pan.
• Mix vinegar in half cup water and add it gradually to the boiling milk.
• When the whey separates from milk fat strain it on cheese or muslin cloth. Run through cold water and let it hang for an hour or two so that water is drained completely out from the paneer
• Start boiling remaining 1 liter of milk in a wide pan, stir continuously and let it reduce to half.
• Add in safron and 1/2 cup sugar in it and let it simmer for another couple of minutes. Keep aside.
• Mix in remaining 2.5 cup of sugar with 1.5 liter of water in a cooker or wider pan. Bring it to boil
• Mean while knead the paneer really well till its smooth. Make small flat discs and drop them in the boiling sugar water. Cover with the lid (if in cooker don't put the whistle on) and let it cook for 10 minutes on high.
• Let it sit covered for another 5 minutes and then uncover the pan and keep the discs in syrup and let it come to warm temperature. At this point the discs would have doubled in size.
• Take each disc in your palm and press lightly to remove the syrup from it, then drop these discs in a bowl.
• In earlier prepared milk add in cardamom powder and finely chopped almonds and pistachios. Pour this milk over the discs in the bowl. Chill and serve.

Notes
I soak the almonds in water for couple of hours so that you can very easily chop them.
You can also use half liter of half and half instead of using 1 liter milk to make ras of the ras malai. Just let it simmer and add in saffron.
I didnt have big vessel to accomodate all the discs in one go for cooking, so i cooked the half of discs as mentioned, then added 2 cups of water to the syrup and cooked rest of the discs. Keeping sugar syrup thin is key to make those discs soft. Dont overcrowd the disc so that they have space to double in size