Cham-Cham (Cottage Cheese-based, syrupy sweet dish)

Posting a Cham-Cham recipe when I am pretty upset with myself. How ironic is that now! Yeah, it’s been so long and I have been MIA. Not that I haven’t been indulging in good food, it’s just that I have focused only on indulging and been too lazy to take measurements of the ingredients, pictures and writing the recipe. Ok, I am only trying to tell myself what not to repeat next time around!

Isn't the name itself so cute - 'Cham - Cham'!! (pronounced chum-chum). Anyways, there were two reasons why I wanted to resume my blog with my all time favorite sweet Cham-Cham. One was that it’s nice to restart on a sweet note, especially if you have a sweet tooth like mine J . And second reason, is to welcome my newest niece - Niketa!

Ok just to give you some background, I just love sweets made from Chenna/ Paneer (Cottage Cheese). I just love the way most of them look so pearly white, delicate and elegant but once you bite into them, they just go burst with all the juices and the texture makes you want to chew on it as much as you can, but your mind wants you to just gobble it up so that you could pop another one into your mouth. Ah, sweets!

Ok. So it’s fairly simple. 3 simple steps. Make paneer/ cottage cheese, dunk it in light sugar syrup and cook, then chill in refrigerator and serve. To serve you could have many variations. I prefer it plain but many in my family like it with saffron flavored malai/ clotted cream topping with some dry fruits like pistachios or sliced almonds.

You can only guess how irresistible these were - while pictures were being taken, cham-cham's were disappearing! :)

You need: (makes 7-8 nos.)

For Cham- Cham

Whole milk -  1 Ltr  (1 Qrt)

Lemon juice – 2 (milk you get in  US takes some effort to curdle!!)

Sugar – 2 Cups

Rose/Kewra water – 1- 2 drops (optional if you like the essence)

For the Malai/Clotted Cream

Full  cream milk – 3 Cups (look for cooking cream)

Sugar – 2 Tbsp (adjust to taste)

Green cardamom powder – ¼ tsp

Saffron – a pinch soaked in 3-4 tbsp of warm milk for 20 min.

To garnish:  Sliced pistachios or almonds. 

1. Bring milk to a boil and add the lemon juice.
2. Keep stirring and boiling till you get lumps of paneer/cheese in pale green water residue. You will know that the cheese has totally separated from the water content.
3. Pour this mixture through a muslin cloth placed on a colander and run under cold water to remove any sour taste from the lemons.  Remove any lemon seeds that might have sneaked in somehow.
4. Squeeze out as much water as you can. You will know if its dry enough if you take a small sample between you both palms and rub for sometime and then when you roll it into a ball its smooth without obvious big cracks.
5. Now on a smooth clean surface, knead the paneer/cheese till it forms a crack free, clay kind of dough. This should take 5 min for a person like me who is a little challenged when it comes to muscle power. So pass on this job to someone who is more efficient.  J
6. Now divide this into 7-8 equal portions. Remember these will be almost double in size when they are ready.
7. Roll into small cylindrical shape and gently flatten them. Just enough so that they don’t start rolling when placed on a plate. No, taste will not differ if they roll, this example is just to tell you how gently should you press to flatten them a bit.  J
8. Now in a wide and deep pan boil 5 cups of water and 2 cups of sugar and stir to dissolve completely. The pan should be wide enough to accommodate chum-chums that will almost double in size. Please don’t make them fight for space and sugar syrup. J
9. Now add those paneer/cheese dumplings to the syrup and bring it back to a boil. Now reduce the heat to medium and cover the pot. Cook for 10 minutes.
10. Now flip the dumplings on the other side,  add rose or kewra essence if you wish to , cover and cook for another 15 minutes.
11. Now switch off the heat and keep it as is with lid on for another 10 min.
12. Time to remove the cham- chams from the syrup and transfer to refrigerator to chill.

To make Saffron Malai/ Clotted Cream:

1. In a heavy bottom pan bring milk to a boil. Now on medium low heat, reduce to half  stirring every now and then to avoid sticking to bottom.
2. Now add the 2 tbsp sugar, cardamom powder and saffron.
3. Reduce further to desired consistency. This will thicken a little more once cooled, so take that into consideration while adjusting the consistency.

To serve:

Serve cham-cham with almonds/pistachios or plain. Or drizzle cham-cham with malai and garnish with almonds or pistachios.