I remember that there was always homemade butter in the fridge growing up. But I always used to prefer the store bought salted uncultured butter as a child. Now that cultured butter is not easily accessible, I really miss it a lot. Especially when I eat the Marathi flatbread called Thalipeeth. It was another dish I really wasn't fond of, but enjoy a lot as a grown up. It is interesting how tastes that remind us of childhood become important to us as adults.
One of the main reasons why butter is made at home in India is because the milk is not homogenized and so the cream floats to the top. This is scooped out over a period of a week or so. A teaspoon of yogurt starter is added on the first day, so that the cream does not spoil and the added cream continues to get cultured as it is collected. Finally, the butter is churned and separated into buttermilk and butter.
I have been buying non-homogenized cream top milk off late and decided to do the same. You can also add culture to store bought cream and make cultured butter. This will be much faster than waiting for 7-10 days to collect enough cream to make a decent quantity of butter.
Ingredients
Cream, store bought or collected over a period of 1-2 weeks
1 tsp of homemade or greek yogurt (greek yogurt has a higher concentration of the bacteria which culture the milk product. This can also be used as a yogurt starter to make yogurt at home)
Method
Add a tsp of yogurt (as a culture starter) to the cream. If you are collecting cream daily, keep stirring the next day's cream into the same container. If you are adding a tsp of yogurt starter to a cream container from the store, then warm the cream, let it cool down till lukewarm and then add the culture. Then keep this aside for a few hours or overnight to set into a yogurt/cultured cream.
Once your cultured cream is ready, make sure it is very cold and then stir it or place in a jar which you can shake. Add a couple of icecubes and then churn till the butter separates. Doing this manually by using a churner or shaking a jar takes a lot of time and is laborious. You can instead pour the cream in a blender and then turn on the blender till the cream separates into butter and water. The watery part is buttermilk.
Add cold water to the separated cream and then scoop out the butter solids. Addition of cold water makes the butter milk dilute, so you can pour the buttermilk out and then add water a couple of times to the butter to remove any remnants of butter milk. This diluted buttermilk is a great nutrient to plants which like acidic soil, like curry leaf.
Tips
To store, add water to a container and then place the butter in this. Change this water daily to keep the butter fresh. You can now melt this butter to make homemade ghee.
One of the main reasons why butter is made at home in India is because the milk is not homogenized and so the cream floats to the top. This is scooped out over a period of a week or so. A teaspoon of yogurt starter is added on the first day, so that the cream does not spoil and the added cream continues to get cultured as it is collected. Finally, the butter is churned and separated into buttermilk and butter.
I have been buying non-homogenized cream top milk off late and decided to do the same. You can also add culture to store bought cream and make cultured butter. This will be much faster than waiting for 7-10 days to collect enough cream to make a decent quantity of butter.
Ingredients
Cream, store bought or collected over a period of 1-2 weeks
1 tsp of homemade or greek yogurt (greek yogurt has a higher concentration of the bacteria which culture the milk product. This can also be used as a yogurt starter to make yogurt at home)
Method
Add a tsp of yogurt (as a culture starter) to the cream. If you are collecting cream daily, keep stirring the next day's cream into the same container. If you are adding a tsp of yogurt starter to a cream container from the store, then warm the cream, let it cool down till lukewarm and then add the culture. Then keep this aside for a few hours or overnight to set into a yogurt/cultured cream.
Once your cultured cream is ready, make sure it is very cold and then stir it or place in a jar which you can shake. Add a couple of icecubes and then churn till the butter separates. Doing this manually by using a churner or shaking a jar takes a lot of time and is laborious. You can instead pour the cream in a blender and then turn on the blender till the cream separates into butter and water. The watery part is buttermilk.
Add cold water to the separated cream and then scoop out the butter solids. Addition of cold water makes the butter milk dilute, so you can pour the buttermilk out and then add water a couple of times to the butter to remove any remnants of butter milk. This diluted buttermilk is a great nutrient to plants which like acidic soil, like curry leaf.
Tips
To store, add water to a container and then place the butter in this. Change this water daily to keep the butter fresh. You can now melt this butter to make homemade ghee.
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