Chanar Misti Polau or Chanar Zarda

Chanar Misti  Polau or Chanar Zarda
Chanar Misti Polau is a very popular Bengali sweet dish. As a kid this was one of my favourite sweet dish and still is. I always wondered if I would be able to make this anytime at home. From past few days I had it in my mind to make it. So today on the occasion of Gurupurnima I wanted to try making this sweet dish.

For the Sugar syrup
Ingredients
1 cup Sugar
1/2 cup Water
1/2 tsp Lemon juice
2 Cardamom crushed
1 small stick of Cinnamon
1 Bay leaf
Few drops of Kewda essence (Optional)

Method
Boil the sugar, bay leaf, cinnamon, cardamon, lemon juice  and water. Make 1 string  sugar syrup. Add Kewda essence. Keep it aside.

Chanar Zarda / Chanar Polau
Ingredients
1 cup Cottage cheese ( water should be drainer out completely )
8 tbsp Milk powder
2  tbsp Cornstarch
1/4 cup All purpose flour
2 tsp Sugar
Pinch of Salt
1 tbsp Ghee
Few drops of Yellow and Orange food colour
Ghee + Oil for frying

Method
Take a mixing bowl. Add all the ingredients in the bowl to make the Polau except food colour. Mix all the ingredients very well and knead it for 5 minutes to make a soft dough. Make around 20 small balls. Keep it aside. Now divide the remaining  dough into three parts. Mix few drops of yellow food colour in one portion of the dough. Mix orange food colour in another portion of the dough. Leave the third postion of the dough as it is. Take a grater. Grate the dough with the help of the grater. Take oil and ghee mix. Heat the oil on medium heat. Fry the paneer balls till brown in colour , dip it in the sugar syrup and keep it aside for 20 minutes.  Fry the grated paneer on a medium heat for 3 minutes. It should not lose its colour and become brown at the same time it should be bit crispy. After frying put it on the tissue paper to remove excess oil. Then add it into the  sugar syrup , cover it and keep it like this for 10 to 15 minutes . Strain the Polau from the syrup and spread it in a wide dish so that it does not stick to each other. Garnish with Almond and pistachio flakes...