Kitchen Mishap Gone Right AKA How I Made Sandesh by Accident

I had some khejur gur (date jaggery) sitting in my fridge for quite some time and thought I will use it up by making some payesh (Bengali kheer, payasam) with it. But what I ended up with is some lovely Gurer Kachagolla (Bengali sweet).

Here is how it happened.





I brought the milk to boil and added khejur gur to it.













And it immediately began to curdle!














This is how it looked. I was utterly mortified!










Then I remembered my mom making chhana at home which looked exactly like this।। Chhana is the raw material for most Bengali sweets. And this one had all the fabulous flavour of khejur gur in it! So I decided to roll with it.






I let the whole thing come to boil once before switching off the flame and letting it cool down.












The liquid separated as it cooled down.













Once it was completely cool, I poured it through a sieve to separate the chhana from the liquid.












Then I realized that this sieve was not fine enough to get all the liquid out of the chhana.











So I used some cheesecloth and let it drip for couple of hours।














Lovely khejur gur flavoured chhana, all ready to be shaped into sandesh.












Voila, Gurer Kachagolla!