Have you tried Bengal’s nectar of the gods? Swarupa Dutt/Rediff.com guides you to the ultimate date palm jaggery sweets.
Nolen gur, or ‘new jaggery’, is extracted from the date palm tree’s sap (which is collected much like how rubber sap is) in the winter months, from November to February, when the tree produces it. The sap is boiled down to jaggery, called patali gur, which is used in many Bengali sweets, including rosogollas and sandesh, essences and ice creams.
The sap is heated till it turns into a viscous liquid; it’s taken off the heat just before crystallisation begins. This liquid is called jhola gur, a dense golden brown syrup, that is at once, caramel-y, woody, fragrant and divine. Sold in earthenware containers (kolshi) & available only in Kolkata winters -- drizzle over vanilla ice cream, add to desserts/cereals, and the best for the last -- eat it straight out of the pot.
The mother lode, in its solid form, is called patali gur or date palm jaggery, and is the result of pouring the thickened sap into platter shaped containers where it cools and solidifies. This has a long shelf life which is why you will still get NG mishtis for a few months even after the season is over.
A hat tip to the iconic Jolbhora Sandesh (Rajkummar Rao’s favourite), the ice-cream is a bit kulfi-ish, with a centre of nolen gur. The sandesh is kissed by two kismish and when you bite into it the liquid nolen gur oozes out from the centre.
A soft sandesh, that almost collapses within itself, with a creamy layer on top infused with NG. The cream is light and not cloying and awful like the Malai Chamcham you get in Mumbai. All regular sandesh is also available in the NG version.
This is a crepe made of a batter of rava, maida, rice flour and is filled with kheer-coconut-infused NG. The crepe has to be very thin and the filling thick so when you bite into it, you need a bib.
Puli is a rice flour dumpling stuffed with coconut and served in a bed of thickened milk (consistency like rabri) sweetened with NG. Available from December to March only.
For at least a decade now, Bengal has been baking some of its traditional mishtis. This is a regular sandesh, with a layer of NG cream, that is baked so that the cream on top is browned and caramelised, while the sandesh remains soft.
This version of caramel custard is, well, jiggly caramel custard sweetened with NG instead of sugar.
It's the must-have at every Bengali home the moment NG hits the markets. Bengali payesh is normally made with rice, with the milk thickened to a rabri-like consistency -- a fistful of rice in 2 litres of full-cream milk. NG is added instead of sugar.
This was probably the first traditional mishti to get popped into the oven. If you haven’t had the NG version, do. The NG roshogolla is not baked, but is infinitely better than the ordinary white roshogolla.
All big Kolkata mithai shops invent at least one new mishti every year, and this soufflé comes from the legendary Balaram Mullick & Radharaman Mullick mishti dukaan.
Also from the 137-year-old Balaram Mullick & Radharaman Mullick, if you like cheesecake, you will love this.
Mousse sweetened with NG and lip-smackingly good.
This is different from Jolbhora Nolen Gur ice-cream in that the consistency is more ice cream than kulfi and the rich, sweet flavours of NG come bursting through. And folks, we could add at last 20 more must-have NG mishtis, but alas, your blood sugar levels!