Chulha-wala Chhena Poda Pitha

A very beloved Odia cheesecake whose taste derives from slow roasting and sugar caramelization, leaf-wrapping, and cooking on a wood-fired stove or hot coals. In this recipe, I've skipped the convection oven baking shortcut in favor of a kummiti aduppu/charcoal stove, chulha or man-aduppu or other makeshift wood-fired stove. It all takes time, effort, and patience, but the rewards are ample in the beautifully flavored, caramelized, smoky and truly desi cake that results. Try it and thank me later.

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Equipment

1 Large saucepan
1 Cheese cloth and strainer
1 6” commercial grade aluminium or other heavy duty baking pan
1 Heavy duty metal plate to cover the aluminium pan
1 Chulha, man aduppu or kummiti aduppu (charcoal stove) or charcoal barbecue
Small sticks of firewood, newspaper, dry leaves
Lighter fluid or kerosene
Matches
1 Chapati grill or roti jail
Cloths and oven mitts

Ingredients

2 litres of whole fat milk
1 cup buttermilk or the juice of 2 large limes
1-2 tbsp semolina/sooji/rava
A handful of toasted nuts: cashews, almonds, pistachios.
1 tbsp golden raisins
½ teaspoon crushed cardamom
A generous grating of nutmeg
Assorted edible and/or flavorful leaves: banana, lime, sal, bauhinia, jackfruit, banyan, pandan, elephant apple, tender mango etc.

Instructions

Prepare the chhena

Bring 2 liters of whole fat milk to a boil in a large saucepan and add about a cup of buttermilk or the juice of 2-3 limes. Lime leaves a pleasant after-taste. Avoid vinegar for the same reason you might choose lime!
Stir on medium-low heat until the coagulation is complete and the whey is an almost clear green-grey, and drain through a clean cheesecloth for not more than 10 minutes. This is important: you want a moist chhena to slow-roast. Dry it out at this stage, and it'll be altogether too easy to burn out your poda pitha. So if the chhena feels wet still, that's just right. [Don’t throw out the whey! Give it to pets or use it in other cooking or feed your curry leaf plant!]
Once the chhena curds are cool enough to handle, add 1 cup of sugar. You can substitute with a light jaggery if you like. Adjust sweetness to taste. Add a tablespoon or two of suji/rava, just enough to absorb some of the excess wetness.
You can either mash this well with your fingers and the heel of your palm for about 15 minutes to get a smooth texture, or blend in a mixie or food processor as a shortcut.
Add about ½ teaspoon powdered cardamom and a good grating of nutmeg.
Add a handful of chopped nuts--cashews, almonds, pistachios, a few raisins if you like. Mix well.

Prep the baking pan and layer with leaves

Prep a baking pan about 6” in diameter [pick a size that doesn't spread the chhena mixture too thin, and gives you a minimum of 3" depth]. Keep in mind that this is going to sit directly on hot coals, so do not use non-stick or other precious/fragile pans. A solid commercial grade aluminum or stainless steel is necessary.
Grease the base and sides of the pan well with ghee.
The line the base with leaves--sal, jackfruit, Bauhinia [Hong Kong orchid], banyan, banana, pandan/ thazampoo/ annapurna, Dillenia indica [elephant apple] all work well, though sal is traditional. Lime leaves aren't large enough, but impart wonderful flavor, especially to chhena coagulated with lime juice. Use a combination of larger and smaller leaves as you'll need multiple layers to protect the chhena from the rather fierce heat of the coals. Keep stronger flavored lime leaves a bit away from contact with chhena or they'll impart bitter tastes, too. Bauhinia and banana are the most pliable; jackfruit and banyan are the least pliable but the most protective.
You're working backwards while lining the base and sides of your pan, so the thicker leaves go in first, followed by the more intensely flavoring ones (like lime), and then the leaves that come in direct contact with the chhena (like bauhinia and banana). Pandan leaves can go on any layer, but their shape works well for the sides of the pan and their flavors are wonderful, of course.
Choose the leaves carefully--you don't have to use them all but different combinations will impart different flavor combinations. Use those to your advantage.
It's also fun to think of the impressions left by these leaves on the final poda pitha--play with that, cutting away at some of the thicker stems and veins if you must to make some leaves more pliable. Banana striations are the most subtle, jack and banyan cut dramatically deep (but their thickness may impede caramelization), and bauhinia and elephant apple can be coaxed to leave some lovely fan-like imprints.
Once the leaf-layering is done, smear the base with a little ghee, and sprinkle a teaspoon of powdered jaggery evenly over the leaves. Pack the sweetened chhena on top, pressing down gently with your fingers. Drizzle a bit of ghee and sprinkle a little more powdered jaggery. Don't skip this; it's what keeps your chhena from burning too fast while deepening the caramelization of that outer layer.
Now cover with more leaves working this time in reverse order: bauhinia and banana (the softer more pliable leaves), followed by lime and pandan (the flavoring ones), and finished with the tougher banyan and jackfruit (the protective layer). 3-4 layers on either side of the chhena are necessary. Pack them in so they sit as tightly as possible.
Cover this with a plate that is again metal and strong enough to bear the heat of the coals as you will eventually need to invert this onto the coals.

Bake the chhena poda

Start your chulha, kummiti adupu or man-aduppu. If you’re using a chulha, makeshift stove with bricks, or a man-aduppu, you’ll need to place a “chapati grill” wire rack or roti jail on top of the stove opening. Once the coals on top of the kummiti aduppu or the roti jail are getting hot, place the chhena in its leafy pan on top, plate-side-up.
You'll need to check on the baking chhena and flip the pan periodically from this point on, especially as the heat intensifies. Keep gloves and cloths to handle the hot baking dish handy. Treat the chhena poda like you would a chapati on a hot tava: keep it moving to keep it from burning, or to burn it evenly. You will also need to add wood to keep temperatures high--or not, if the heat of the coals is intense enough not to need much firing. You'll know by staying close.
Keep the chhena plate-side-up for about 25-30 minutes, and then flip it. Leave it again for about 15 minutes and flip it again just to check done-ness by lifting off the plate and peeking under the leaf layers. You’ll get a sense of how fast it’s cooking at this point. If the jaggery is liquidy and the chhena still white, put it back, plate-side-down for another 15 minutes. Flip it 2-3 times in this way—the total process takes about an hour and a half.
Once you start to smell and see signs of caramelization, remove the pan from the stove. Invert the chhena poda pitha onto a plate, and gently and slowly lift off the baking pan. The pan should lift fairly easily off, even if the leaves have burned and stuck a little. Peel off the leaf layers and you should have a nicely roasted, here darker-there lighter chhena poda pitha.
If you're not satisfied, you can safely return the cake to the stove for more browning.
The chhena poda will swell while cooking and settle while cooling, so give it time to do so. Once it’s cooled significantly, you can cut with a knife and serve.
This will keep a few days, refrigerated, but I’d be surprised if it lasts more than the rest of the afternoon, even for a family of 2.

Notes

You can, of course, skip the whole chulha cooking-flipping-checking process and just bake your chhena in an oven heated to 350F/180C for about 30 minutes, then turn the heat only to the bottom element so that the base of the cake charrs just slightly--and get the whole thing done with far less fuss--but where's the fun in that or the sweet smokiness of open-fire baking?