Chum Chum | Cham Cham | Chom Chom Recipe

Take 1.5 lt cow milk in a heavy-bottomed vessel. Bring it to boil. Cow milk is best for preparing chhena. Avoid using skimmed milk or milk in tetra packs. As soon as the milk boils, simmer the flame. Take 4 tablespoons of vinegar and add 4 tablespoons of water to it. Now pour the mixture gradually in boiling milk and keep stirring using a spatula. Lemon juice can also be added instead of Vinegar. Another option is curd/yogurt. Add 4 to 5 tbsp of yogurt or more if required. With yogurt, you don’t need to rinse the chenna in the water later. After adding vinegar, milk will start curdling. As soon as the milk curdles, switch off the flame. The milk should curdle completely with the green watery whey.

Now pour the curdled milk in the muslin lined strainer or bowl. Reserve the whey and add it to your chapati dough or in dals or curries. The whey is very nutritious, so don’t discard it. Wash the chhena with water. This process will remove the flavor of vinegar and tangy taste from the chenna. Now squeeze the muslin cloth with your hands very well, so that excess water is drained from the chenna. Hang it on the kitchen tap for 30 mins to extract excess water from it. Note that the chenna should not have too much moisture nor be too dry as then the rasgulla will break when cooking. The kneading process is very important. Chenna has to be kneaded until it turns smooth and uniform without any grains. When you feel your palms becoming a bit greasy, it's time to stop. Don't over knead the chhena. Add one tablespoon of sooji/rava (semolina) and one pinch of baking soda to chhena and knead it again. With the heels of your palms mash the chenna and knead. Keep on collecting the chenna from the sides and continue to mash and knead.

Use a large pot or pan to prepare chashni so that there is enough space for the rasgulla to cook and increase in size. Add 400gm sugar and 1.5 lt water to make sugar syrup. Bring it to boil. Stir so that the sugar dissolves. Add Cardamom pods in sugar syrup. You may add cardamom powder as well. but I prefer Cardamom pods as it keeps the syrup clean.

Divide the dough into equal portions to make crack free smooth cylindrical chhena balls. Now take a small portion of chhena and roll it between your palm, give it cylindrical shape like a chum chum. Don't make them large as they will double in size when cooked. Prepare all chum chum pieces. Cover all them with a moist muslin or kitchen towel and keep aside.

As soon as sugar syrup starts boiling and bubbling, gently add chum chum pieces gradually one after another.

Keep the flame high in the beginning 10 minutes and keep the pan totally covered so that vapours should not come out easily. The key step is to maintain the heat steadily. The time to cook rasgulla will vary depending on the thickness & quality of the pan, the size of the pan, and the intensity of the flame. So the time range can vary. but on an average this sweet takes around 3 hours to cook on medium flame. Keep checking after every 30 minutes and keep adding boiling water to it if sugar syrup thickens and decreases in quantity.

The chum chum will puff and double in size. If you keep the lid open for a long time, they will shrink. Always keep the pot covered before turning off the flame. do not open the lid until temperature comes down. The final look of chum chum is naturally orange in colour that is gained through 3 hours of rigorous cooking and they turn out extremely soft, spongy and juicy. It is finally coated with coconut or mawa flakes as a garnish.