Chena poda (baked cottage cheese) is a sweet dish from the state of Orissa, India. The literal meaning of chena poda is burnt cheese; chena is cottage cheese and poda means burnt.
The procedure is simple: home-made cottage cheese is well-kneaded along with dry fruits and sugar, then it is slowly baked till the caramelized brown colour appears. What makes this sweet dish different from other Indian desserts is the flavour of caramelized sugar.
Ingredients
Home made cottage cheese: 11/2 cup
Suji/semolina: 1 tbsp
Powdered sugar: 11/2 cup
Raisins (chopped): 1 tbsp
Cashew nuts (chopped): 1 tbsp
Pistachio (chopped): 1/2 tbsp
Green cardamom (powdered): 6-7
Baking powder: 1/2 tsp
Brown sugar or caramalize normal sugar to brown
Ghee
Preparation
1.Take the home made chena (after draining out the water) in a flat plate and knead with your palm until no lumps in the chena.
2. Add suji (semolina), sugar and powdered green cardamom to the kneaded chena. I used powdered sugar, as it is much easier to blend. Mix them well. As you will mix the sugar you will see the chena will become wet. It will take a moist smooth soft texture.
3. Add the chopped dry fruits. Mix well. Grease with ghee and sprinkle brown sugar.
4. Pre-heat the oven to 425F/300C.
5.Take baking tray, grease it with ghee and dust it with brown sugar. This brown sugar will caramelized to give a brilliant brown color to the chena poda.
6. Add baking powder to the chena just before putting it inside the oven. Mix baking powder well and put the mixture evenly in a baking tray or oven proof bowl. Flatten the surface with a knife or spatula.
7. Bake for 30 min at 400F/300C. The chena will rise just like a cake.
8.Grease an aluminium foil with ghee (clarified butter) and cover the baking tray and keep baking at 200F/100C for 20 min. But be very careful when you are doing this, the baking tray would be very hot, so take care and do not burn yourself (as I do that very often).
9. Insert a toothpick or a knife at the center of the baked chena, if it comes out clean then your chena poda is done. If you found sticky chena mixture on the toothpick or knife then bake it for some more time.
10. Let it cool down, take it out on a plate, cut into slices and serve.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR – Chitrangada Kundu
Chitrangada hails from India and her passion for cooking led to the creation of Color and Spices blog, where she shares diverse recipes. Coming from a Bengali family, she mainly cooks Bengali cuisine, but as she does not like to eat similar dishes on a daily basis, Chitrangada experiments with various cuisines.