Rasmalai

Rasmalai is soft, flattened cheese dumplings simmered in sweetened, cardamom-scented milk. It comes from the same milk-sweet family as gulab jamun, but where that dish is dense, fried and syrup-soaked, rasmalai is lighter, poached rather than fried, and served cold or just cool.

What it really is

Fresh curdled milk cheese is kneaded smooth, shaped into small flattened discs, and simmered in a light sugar syrup until they puff up slightly and turn spongy. Once cooked through, the discs move into a separate pool of milk, reduced and sweetened, flavoured with cardamom and sometimes a few threads of saffron, where they soak and cool, taking on the milk's flavour without falling apart.

The dumplings move to fresh milk, not the syrup they cooked in. A rasmalai left sitting in its cooking syrup tastes flat and one-note; the second soak in sweetened milk is what gives the dish its name and its real character.

How it is served

• Cold or just cool, in a shallow bowl with milk pooled around the discs.
• Garnished with a few chopped pistachios or almonds and a thread of saffron.
• At the end of a meal, alongside or instead of gulab jamun.

How to write it on the menu

• Flag the dairy plainly.
• Say if it's served chilled, since that's the standard and expected way, unlike the warm gulab jamun it's often paired with.
• Note whether pistachio or almond is used as garnish, since both are common but different guests may prefer to know which.