An Embarassment of Riches-Rasmalai

Lately I have been inundated with interesting emails and SMS's.

They offer me a fortune, as I am one of those special people picked out of the Universe to recieve, completely gratis, a mind boggling amount of money , for doing nothing, for just being me.

Take this one for example:

"Your mobile number has won 450,000 GB Pounds in ongoing............... Int"l Mobile promo. To claim your prize email to --->"

or this:

"Your email id has been awarded ￡2,500,000 GBP. Send Full name, Country, Tel, Age"

Now we all know these messages are rubbish, but in my heart of hearts this sounds completely right. After all don't I deserve it? The Chosen One.  To get a gratuity for life.

Gratuity: A favor or gift, usually in the form of money, given in return for service.

Noun    1. gratuity - a relatively small amount of money given for services rendered (as by a waiter) backsheesh, baksheesh, bakshis, bakshish, pourboire, tip

2. gratuity - an award (as for meritorious service) given without claim or obligation
prize,

Obviously I mean 2 above. An award for meritorious service...etc etc.

But what is this service....for living?

Ok these are hard times- arent they? And then, in the new Americanese we are learning fast here...I am Special. So put "hard times" and "special" together and you have the infinite capacity to receive handouts. In fact they sound positively deserved!

Its because of this kind of thinking that there are more small fry caught by this phishing than you would imagine.

On the other hand its this kind of thinking that seems to characterise our politicians. They recieve fortunes all the time from unidentifiable sources. So many of them look like Cheshire Cats who have licked the cream...repeatedly.

For those of us who do not belong to that disgusting sounding group "The Creamy Layer"and are not fat cats who have creamed off the top for years- here is a nice recipe to add richness to your life without guilt. And here your efforts will be justly rewarded..its not a lottery after all.

Rasmalai

Ingredients

500 gms Rabdi

1 tsp cardamom/ elaichi

750 gms Sugar

250 gms Paneer

4 tbsp maida ( white flour)

1/2 level tsp baking powder

400 ml water + 1 litre

1 tbsp sliced unsalted pistachios

Make the Rabdi from 2 litres of milk. Bring milk to the boil and reduce heat. Let it simmer gently for 1 1/2 to 2 hours stirring occasionally.Add the powdered cardamon and 150 gms of the sugar when it has reduced to 1/4th the original amount. Mix well till the sugar has dissolved. Refrigerate.

Make the patties: Mix the 4 tsps of the flour and baking powder together.Mash the paneer till smooth.Add the flour mix to the paneer and mix very well.Now make 12 patties out of this paneer.

Dissolve the remaining  flour in a bit of water.Heat the rest of the water and add the flour mix and sugar. Bring to a boil and when the syrup starts foaming add the patties . Cook for 10 minutes. The syrup should foam constantly and should not settle down during this process.You will need to top up the water to allow this to happen. Add about 200 ml water very , very slowly in a trickle from a jug right through the 10 minutes.

When the Rasmalai patties are cooked they will have little holes in them like a sponge.

Remove and put in a seperate bowl  filled with 1 litre of  water .Let them cool.

Now squeeze out the water and syrup from the patties very gently and put into the bowl of prepared rabdi.

Scatter the sliced pistas on top and serve chilled.

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Now isnt that worth a million dollars??