Yoghurt and Other Culinary Experiments

Ever since we moved to the little cottage on the green hill, I've started making a lot of our weekly consumables from scratch. Well, that's not strictly true. For one, from 'scratch' implies that we produce the raw products - milk, flour, tomatoes - ourselves, which, at least at this point, we don't. For two, I've been playing around with making more complicated food items from simple raw ingredients ever since we lived in Micronesia. There, it was a matter of necessity. Want yoghurt that's not moldy? Make it yourself from a smuggled-in starter and a box of milk. It was the same with a lot of our edibles, although to be fair by the end of it we had figured out all kinds of sneaky ways to get what we wanted/needed from off-island sources. When we moved to Ireland, my cooking and DIY skills in the kitchen really ramped up. For that first year, when I wasn't yet working, I had a lot of time on my hands and, for the first time, really taught myself to cook. Now I make about 90% of what we eat, including soups and stews (sooo many soups and stews), chicken broth, pizza/spaghetti sauce, salsa, many of our bread products, and, of course, the aforementioned yoghurt.

I'm not really sure why I do it. Some of my efforts, like my weekly loaf of bread, aren't even that good. (I've mastered a lot in the kitchen, but I just can't pull off a soft, flaky-crust, well-risen loaf of bread. But I keep trying, much to Sam's chagrin, as he's the main bread eater in the family.) I guess there's just something I like about the process of taking a few simple ingredients - flour, yeast, salt and a little olive oil - and turning them, like magic, into pitta bread (which, unlike my loaf bread, really is quite delicious). I like the fact that I control the ingredients in my soups and stews, which means they're often quite creative and also means I know exactly what's in there. It is satisfying to know that I have the resources and abilities to whip together something good to eat out of a few basic household staples. And, in many cases, it does save a bit of cash (though never quite as much as those holistic, all-natural sites would have you believe, especially when you figure in labour and fuel costs).

Anyway, I thought I'd share my trusty yoghurt recipe with you all today. I know there are a million yoghurt recipes on the web (I think I stole this one from somewhere myself), but of all that I've tried over the years, this is the best and easiest. It really makes good, thick yoghurt every time, and keeps the time and effort involved to a minimum. Plus, it saves at least two full euros* on every litre of yoghurt we consume (again, not counting time, effort, and fuel). Given that we eat about 3 litres of yoghurt a month, that's a cool 72 euros' savings in a year. It doesn't sound like much, but that adds up to a special meal out, an extra splurge at Christmas, or a bottle of really nice whiskey. Not too shabby for simply heating a pot of milk on the stove every couple of weeks!

* The cheapest yoghurt with live cultures that we can buy in Ireland is about 1.50 for a 500 ml pot if you get it on sale. You can buy cheaper yoghurt for sure, but it doesn't have live cultures, which kind of defeats the point of yoghurt in my opinion. A litre of milk costs somewhere around 1 euro.

Time involved:

30ish minutes of active preparation
9+ hours to let the little beasties in the yoghurt work their magic


Necessary ingredients/tools:

1 litre Milk. Whole milk is best, but it will work with any kind of milk, even UHT (although other sites say it won't, I can tell you that UHT was the only milk we had in Micronesia and it totally works fine.) You can also use more than one litre of milk - that's just all our mini-fridge can handle, and the two of us can't eat much more yoghurt than that in a week.

1/4 cup live culture Plain Whole Milk Yoghurt. Again, this will work any kind of yoghurt, including low fat (I don't know about nonfat yoghurt but you should try it and let me know). It will also work with flavoured yoghurt, although you might get a slight taste of strawberry or whatever in your final product. The main thing is that the yoghurt has live cultures. I assumed that live cultures was what makes yoghurt yoghurt, but there are lots of brands in Ireland that don't have live cultures! So double check. After you've made the yoghurt yourself once, you can save a little container of it to use as a starter the next time, so you really never need to buy yoghurt again after the first time.

Cooking thermometer. There is a way to do this on a wing and a prayer, based on the bubbles forming on the hot milk and the back of the wrist / baby formula test for determining how cool the yoghurt is when you add the culture. I did it this way in Micronesia. But I'm warning you, results may vary (and did!) It's WAY easier with a thermometer.

1 largeish Pot.

1 Whisk or Something Similar to Stir With.

1 empty Milk Jug.

1 Thermos Cooler.

2+ Clean empty Containers for Yoghurt

1 small clean empty Container for next week's starter.


Directions:

1. Fill an emnpty milk jug half full with boiling water, then top up with cold tap water. Put the milk jug in a cooler and seal tightly. Place in a warm spot. This helps bring the cooler's internal temp up a bit to facilitate the live cultures in the yoghurt, which need a warm place to get it on.

2. Remove yoghurt starter from the fridge to allow to come to room temperature. (My starter here is in the baby food container, left over from a previous yoghurt-making effort.) Remove milk from the fridge.

3. Add milk to a largeish pot and attach thermometer to the side of the pot. Have a whisk or other stirring implement at the ready.

4. Slowly bring the milk up to 185 degrees F. You will want to stir the milk regularly. DO NOT let it boil or burn. This is a good time to do something in the kitchen - dishes, cleaning, reading a book while perched on the counter - so that you don't forget about the milk and end up with a disaster on your hands.

5. Now is choose your own adventure time. You can either maintain the now-hot milk at 185 degrees for 10 minutes, OR you can turn off the heat now and let the milk slowly cool to 110 degrees F. I always keep the milk at 185 degrees for 10 minutes, because I think it makes the end product a bit thicker and smoother. If you do this, it does require careful attention for the whole 10 minutes so the temp doesn't spike or drop off. You should be stirring constantly. This is a great time to catch up on your favourite podcast while you pay close attention to the milk.

6. Slowly let the milk drop in temp to 110 degrees. You don't have to keep too close an eye on it during this time, but don't let it drop below 110.

7. Once the milk gets to 110 degrees, carefully remove the nasty plastic-y skim that's undoubtedly formed on the milk and discard. Then slowly add the 1/4 cup yoghurt with the live cultures to the pot of warm milk. Stir briskly until the yoghurt is fully incorporated and is not at all lumpy.

8. Carefully pour the warm milk into your clean dry containers. Make sure to fill an additional little container to set aside. This will form your starter next time. You can use as many containers as you need/want, bearing in mind that they must all fit in your cooler. Wipe up the inevitable milk spill mess and ring marks you've made on the counter. Ahem.

 9. Place the containers filled with warm milk into the cooler, which should now be toasty warm. Leave the milk jug in there. Close up the cooler tightly and place in a warm spot. I leave mine sitting next to the wood stove, but in your kitchen or near a heat vent would be just fine.

10. Leave the cooler alone for 9+ hours. I wouldn't leave it alone for more than about 12, but overnight is totally fine. 

11. When the time is up, remove your now-solid yoghurt containers from the cooler, and VOILA - you can now marvel at the amazing properties of live bacteria! You have taken ordinary milk and turned it, like magic, into yoghurt! After you're done ooh-ing and aah-ing, place the containers in the fridge. "The experts" would probably tell you to eat it within a week, but we've gone closer to two (or sometimes more, shh, don't tell!) without any problems. Use common sense, of course - if it smells or looks funky, don't eat it! But it will probably look and smell like milky-yoghurty goodness, and you will scarf it all up long before it has time to go bad.

We use yoghurt for all kinds of things. I eat it plain, which I actually really enjoy, but I'm weird. We also add fruit or berries to it, top it with cereal or oats, add honey or sugar for sweetness, cook with it, and use it as a substitute for sour cream in all kinds of recipes. It is super versatile, and, of course, packs a mean probiotic punch. Plus all that calcium and good fat. You really can't go wrong. So eat up, and up, and up!