- Servings: 5-6
- Preparation time: 3 minutes.
- Cooking time: 20 minutes.
- Total time: 23 minutes.
Our food today getting internationalised; I would like to revive India’s traditional culture of eating home cooked food. “Paneer (cottage cheese) ka kheer”, often known as “Chhannar Payash“ in Bengali, holds a special place in Bengali households, especially during festivals and auspicious occasions.
It is traditionally prepared to celebrate birthdays, religious rituals, or during festivals like Durga Puja and Janmashtami. Unlike the usual kheer made with rice, this version uses fresh Chhanna (Homemade Paneer), which gives it a soft, melt-in-the-mouth texture.
The kheer is slow-cooked with full cream milk and sweetened with sugar or jaggery, and delicately flavored with cardamom and saffron. In Bengali homes, this dessert is not just food; it’s an expression of love, devotion, and festivity.
It can also be prepared on the occasion of Navratri or Durga pooja or any festival as a phalahari recipe.
Its taste is really-really extraordinary and can be prepared quickly if you have ready paneer in your hand.
Ingredients:
- Paneer: 200 gm
- Milk: 1 liter
- Sugar: 50 gm
- Green cardamom powder: 1 teaspoon
- Pistachio: 12-15 no.
- Cashew nut: 12-15 no.
- Saffron: 1 pinch
Preparation:
- Crumble paneer and keep aside.
- Chop pistachio and cashew nut, Keep aside.
Method:
- Take a wide mouth heavy bottom pan; apply some ghee (clarified butter) at the base and inner wall of the pan, pour the milk into the pan and allow it to boil on high flame, keep stirring and scraping the sides of the vessels at regular interval after 10-12 minutes it reduces to half of volume, don’t forget to scrap and stir continuously.
- Add saffron and sugar; reduce the flame, when milk starts getting thick consistency (see photo), within couple of minutes add cashew nut.
- Add crumbled paneer and allow it to boil on high flame, keep stirring, when it will become thick, add cardamom powder, now put off the flame, and allow it to cool.
- Serve hot in serving bowl. Decorate with Pistachio. Keep it into refrigerator for an hour or two.
- Now, “Paneer (cottage cheese) ka kheer “is ready to serve.
Paneer (cottage cheese) ka kheer by Nag Ratna Sahu is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.