Rasogolla and Sandesh: The taste of Bengal (India)

Want to know about Indian vegetarian food? Delicious Indian sweets? India has hundreds and thousands categories of foods in its list. Hundreds of varieties of sweets are found here. Perhaps the most popular is Rasogolla, that is nicknamed as Bengali sweet in India, outside West Bengal.

It is soft and spongy! It is sweet!! It is delicious!!! No other sweet can match the taste of this Bengali sweet.

Have a taste for it? Like to eat?

Come Kolkata! The city of joy and the capital of West Bengal. One will find sweet shops everywhere selling Rasogolla and Sandesh. Bengalis love it, so as Marwaris, Gujratis and Marathis. Even foreigners come to Kolkata can not restrain themselves from tasting the same.

Baghbazar, a colony in north Kolkata was renowned for preparing Rasogolla in the past. Nowadays the most famous names are K.C.Das, Chittaranjan and Bhavatarini.

There are Rasogolla shops all over India. It is so popular a sweet that the same is served in most of the marriage parties in northern India.

Besides Kolkata, Bikaner ( Rajasthan) has become another center of production. Milk, main ingredient of the sweet, is available there in huge quantity and in a cheaper rate. Tin packed Rasogolla is exported globally from both Kolkata and Bikaner.

How are these made?

Boiling milk is added with some drops of lemon juice. In a result of its acidic reaction milk splits into two parts, a jelly like white substance called Chhana and a greenish liquid. Chhana is a cheese like material.

Chhana is added with some flour or arrowroot, mixed well and grinded. The skilled hands give grinded Chhana a spherical shape.They boil these spheres in water for some time and then dip them into chasni. (Prepared by boiling a solution of sugar and water). The spongy spheres soak chasni within it, that sweetens it. After few hours it is ready to eat Rasogolla.

Some times they add saphron, cardamom, almonds etc inside to enhance taste. In that case, it is called Rajbhog, that means eatables for the royals. Two pieces of Rasogollas are sandwitched with a layer of cream to make it a cream chop. Several other varieties of sweets are prepared adding this or that material in Rasogolla. Azimganj, another town in Bengal, produces Malpua, a similar variey of Rasogolla.

Sandesh is also made of Chhana. Chhana is baked and grinded at first. Some sugar is added to it and put to different shapes. In the winter season some varieties of Sandesh are prepared adding Nalen Gud (A sweetener got from date tree) in place of sugar. This looks like a very simple process, but it is very difficult to prepare. It needs a lot of expertise. Only an experienced hand can prepare a tasty Sandesh or a spongy Rasogolla.

Sandesh has different varieties such as Kadapak, Golap, Talsans, Kesaria, and Kanchagolla etc.

Ganguram, Nepal Chandra, Girish Chandra are some of the famous shops of Sandesh.

Healthy food

Both Rasogolla and Sandesh are milk products but do not contain any fats. Both the sweets are light, low cholesterol but enriched with high protein and carbohydrates. It is also rich in minerals like calcium. These are among only a few sweets that do not contain fats. Both are easily digestible yet having a high calorie value.

These special features are the added attraction to these sweets besides its delicious taste. These are very useful for the patients of indigestion and for those suffering obesity. Sugar free version is also available for the diabetics.

What to think now?

Come Kolkata and enjoy the sweets!!!

Vegetarian food

This is a unique vegetarian recipe enriched with high protein. These sweets do not contain non vegetarian materials such as meat, fish, sea foods, eggs etc. Both Rasogolla and Sandesh can be proved a better alternate of non vegetarian food for those who are converted to vegetarians.