Milk, and its components

Dairy has always been part of our household diet - butter, cold milk on cereal, hot milk after dinner, yogurt for lunch, etc etc. In the US, though, you buy each separate dairy component pre-made. Yogurt comes in plastic tubs. Butter in sticks. Milk in gallon jug. While one can purchase these things in Hyderabad, too, I've found myself experimenting, with Sarwary's help. Which, admittedly, has sort of weirded Greg out.

It started because pre-packaged yogurt is pretty expensive here, but a half-liter of "packet" milk (so called because it comes in a plastic packet) is only 15 Rs ($0.30) for whole milk or 9 Rs ($0.18) for skim. Sarwary, being ever concious of our food expenditures, helpfully pointed out that she could make yogurt from packet milk at about 1/3 the cost of pre-made. We took her up on the offer and discovered that homemade yogurt was not only less expensive, but also tastes 100X better.

For a while, she was purchasing a packet of fresh (non-pasturized) buffallo milk on her way in every morning. While I've read yogurt from fresh milk is totally safe because the yogurt making process pasturizes it, I decided to investigate other options. The UHT ("box") milk was out - the high temperatures it is pasturized at to make it shelf-stable prohibits any yogurt-making ability. Then I noticed our neighbors were having packet milk delivered - and the packets said pasturized - problem solved!

For the first month, I've set our order at 1 liter (2 packets) of whole (6%) milk - one packet for yogurt, one for William - and a half liter of "double toned" milk (ie, 0.3% milk fat, close to skim). We still boil the milk for William just to make sure the pasturization is complete. The best part is the thick cream - it is 6% after all! - floats to the top. I skim that off and put a teaspon on fresh fruit salad for dessert!

Some days, though - more often than Greg would like - the milk is not used quickly enough. It only lasts about two days from the date on the packet, and sometimes less. The other day when I was boiling William's milk, rather than a nice cream on the top, I noticed thick chunks floating in a yellow liquid. hmm... no good, I thought. But, the thick chunks looked awfuly like paneer (Indian cheese), so I saved them and tossed the yellow stuff.

Sure enough, after some conversations with the ladies at the office, I discovered the two ways to make paneer. If your milk is fresh, put a little lemon juice or vinegar in it to break it up, and boil until the chunks come. If your milk is spoiled, you just have to boil and the separation occurs naturally! My "Indian quesadilla" for lunch today (paneer between two whole wheat chapattis) was quite delicious.

I haven't started making my own butter yet. To do that, I'd have to save up the little bits of cream and not put them on fruit salad. Plus, churning is a little more work-intensive than just letting something sit on the stove at a low boil. But, yogurt, cream, milk, and paneer are great. I've been debating about ordering some supplies to make mozzerella, too, since that's pretty easy if you have the right "starter" tablet.

Greg is still weirded out and has decided to stick with yogurt and none of my other dairy creations. As he has a slight lactose intollerance anyway, it's no big loss. If you come across any other recipes for spoiled milk, send them my way!