Langcha( oblong shaped cottage cheese fried to golden brown and dipped in sugar syrup)

Langcha:

Sweets are very important in Bengali's food culture, especially in festivities and ceremonies, without a sweet dish it is not complete. West Bengal is famous for a variety of sweets like Rasogolla, Chanarpulao, Jalbhara Sandesh, Nalengurer Sandesh, Kalojam. Langcha is one of them, it is kind of gulab jamun/Ladykenny shape-wise different. In the West Bengal district of Bardhaman, a town called Shaktigarh is famous for these sweets.

I am not very fond of the sweet dish though in festivals and family celebrations demand sweet dishes. Homemade fresh tasty sweets can't be compared with frozen market one. Generally, we need to make cottage cheese out of milk then cottage cheese dough shaped in oblong and fried in ghee or oil until golden brown before being put in sugar syrup. Hence I have a shortcut recipe, instead of cottage cheese I used milk, mawa milk powder, semolina, all-purpose flour to make this dish though it tastes the same as we bought it from the market.

Course- Sweet dish
Dish - Bengali
Author - Usashi Mandal
Serves - 4

Preparation time - 20 minutes

Cooking time - 30 minutes

Some other sweets from my kitchen :
Cham Cham

Sandesh

Baked Roshogolla

Narkel Naru

Mango Malai Cham Cham

Roshogolla

Pantua/ Gulabjamun
Rasmalai

Mohon bhog/ Suji Halwa

Ingredients:                      

1/2 cup of whole milk

1 tbsp of semolina/ suji

1 cup of milk powder

1/2 cup of all-purpose flour

1/8 tsp baking soda

1 tsp cardamom powder

1 tsp yellow food color(optional)

2 cup of sugar                                       

2 1/2 cup of water

1 tbsp powdered sugar

1 tsp chopped pistachio 

Vegetable oil for frying                             

Instructions:

Making sugar syrup:-

In a big pan add 2 cups of sugar and 2 1/2 cups of water, boil until sugar dissolves completely. Add a pinch of cardamom powder and mix well. Keep aside.

Making dough for Langcha:-

1. Take a bowl to add milk powder, all-purpose flour, semolina, baking powder, whole milk( pouring small milk at a time), and make a soft dough.

2. Cover it with a damp cloth and keep aside for 10 minutes. After 10 minutes add 1 pinch of food color(optional)and powder sugar mix it well. Rest it for another 5 to 10 minutes.

3. Wet your hands. Take a small amount of dough and pressing with hands give it a shape like langcha(as shown in the picture). Keep the size of sweets small from your desired size, it will puff up after frying and It will be raw from inside and sugar syrup will not enter inside of it.

Frying Langcha:- 

1. In a deep frying pan heat vegetable oil. Then slowly add Lanchas not crowded much and fry it until brown in low flame. If the flame is high then Langcha will take color easily but not cook from inside. 

2. Take out fried Langcha and place it on a paper towel.

3. Warm up the sugar syrup. Add fried Langcha slowly in hot sugar syrup. Let them soak for 3-4 hours, then serve. Serve it hot or refrigerate for 1 hour then serve, as your wish.

Some more sweet recipes:
Misti Aloor Malpua