Milk

by Anne Mendelson

  Let the brewed coffee cool to room temperature. In hot weather, you may want to chill it. Taste for sweetness. If using evaporated milk, fill tall serving glasses up to the brim with ice cubes or crushed ice and pour in the coffee, leaving a good inch or two at the top. Add evaporated milk to taste, gently pouring it over a spoon so that it will gradually eddy down into the coffee in pretty swirls.

  Condensed milk needs a lot of mixing, which is best done by adding about ⅓ to ½ cup of the thick, heavy stuff to the carafe of cooled coffee and stirring vigorously. Taste for sweetness, fill serving glasses with ice cubes or crushed ice, and top up with the coffee-milk mixture.

  HOT CHOCOLATE

  It’s high time for the food-minded to discover that despite much confusion in labeling, hot chocolate is not the same as hot cocoa. The latter is made from a mixture using ground cacao partly denatured by removal of the cacao butter that is an intrinsic part of real chocolate. I can see the point of cocoa in a few uses—but not in chocolate for drinking, which has been one of the finest fruits of Old World–New World cross-fertilization since Spanish conquerors returning from Mexico with cacao beans and reports of native chocolate-drinking traditions inspired the nations of Europe to develop their own counterparts. To have the right body it has to be made with full-fat chocolate. Unfortunately, there is no formal labeling requirement.

  Cows’ milk, which was unknown in pre-Columbian Mexico, probably didn’t enter the picture during the first few generations of European chocolate drinking. (Until the late nineteenth century, chocolate was scarcely used for any purpose but drinking.) To this day there are fine versions of hot chocolate made without a drop of milk. But where the tradition of milk-based hot chocolate took hold, what people loved about it was the effect of marrying two remarkably similar forms of fat. Cacao butter happens to be a closer match for the saturated/unsaturated lipid “profile” of milkfat (see this page) than any other culinary fat, which is why the “mouthfeel” of chocolate somewhat resembles that of butter. Put them together as a hot drink, and you have something utterly luscious.

  This kind of hot chocolate is better approached as an idea than a recipe: Melt some chocolate and mix it with some previously heated rich, creamy milk. (Since rich, creamy milk has all but ceased to exist, I recommend the best whole milk you can find combined with a little light or heavy cream.) The chocolate can be as recherché or ordinary as you like. When I first started making hot chocolate, the usual base was Baker’s brand unsweetened chocolate, to which you added a little sugar. Nowadays most fans probably would opt for some version of semisweet or bittersweet eating chocolate. Follow your general taste in chocolate, whether it’s for one of the superdense and superexpensive kinds (Scharffen Berger, El Rey, Valrhona) or one of the humbler European or American brands. Most people prefer dark chocolate, but there’s no reason not to use milk chocolate. Here is a general scenario:

  For one large serving, allow 1 ounce of semisweet, bittersweet, or unsweetened chocolate per cup of whole milk or milk-cream combination (say, 1 tablespoon heavy cream or 2 tablespoons light cream to a cup of milk). Real chocoholics probably will want to use more chocolate for greater intensity, but I recommend first trying the 1 ounce per cup ratio so that you’ll have a standard of comparison for next time. If the chocolate is unsweetened or on the very bitter side of bittersweet, allow 1 to 2 tablespoons sugar per ounce of chocolate (less or more to taste). Otherwise, omit sugar.

  Break the chocolate into small pieces, and put it in a small saucepan with a few tablespoons of water and the sugar (if using). Put the milk in another small saucepan. Start warming both over low heat, keeping an eye on the milk to prevent it from scalding. Whisk together the slowly melting chocolate and water; when the chocolate and optional sugar are smoothly dissolved, start gradually whisking in the warmed milk. Heat to just under a boil, whisking constantly, and pour into chocolate cups or small mugs.

  People vary the basic formula in many different ways—for example, letting some whole spice like cinnamon, cardamom, allspice, or vanilla bean briefly steep in the hot milk before straining it over the chocolate, or lacing each cup with booze (whiskey, rum, or any preferred liqueur or eau-de-vie). Whipped cream (plain, sweetened, or flavored) is a favorite topping.

  CHOCOLATE MALTED

  I belong to the era of drugstore soda fountains, a species unknown to about the last two generations of Americans. In those days, moderately priced everyday ice cream was generally creamier, since plebeian and superpremium brands were not as firmly segregated into marketing niches as they are today.

  It seems to me that soda-fountain fare then was far more satisfying and less contrived than the ice-cream extravaganzas now served up in multistar restaurants. I can’t imagine anything ever tasting better than a simple butterscotch sundae—or this unpretentious combination of milk, vanilla ice cream, chocolate-flavored syrup, and malted-milk powder.

  Since my youth both the syrup and the malt powder have deteriorated somewhat. It takes some doing to find chocolate-flavored syrup containing more cane sugar than corn syrup. Malted-milk powder lends crucial depth to the whole, but this also can take some searching for, and the few surviving brands tend to be additive-laden. (Plain old ground malted barley and powdered milk used to be nearly the only ingredients.) On the other hand, the advent of handheld immersion blenders has made it easier for home cooks to produce the right consistency.

  In my day malteds were in high nutritional repute and thought to be made even better for growing children by the addition of a raw egg. I like the extra body that this gives, but raw eggs have to be viewed with some caution nowadays.

  YIELD: One large (about 2 cups’ worth) milkshake or 2 small ones

  3 generous scoops vanilla ice cream, preferably a premium brand made with vanilla bean

  ⅔ cup very cold milk, or as needed

  3 tablespoons plain (not chocolate) malted-milk powder

  Chocolate-flavored syrup, preferably made with cane sugar

  1 raw egg (optional)

  1 heaping cup finely crushed or shaved ice

  Put all the ingredients into a 1-quart glass measuring pitcher or other sturdy pitcher and begin blending with a handheld immersion blender. (If you don’t have one, combine everything in the jar of a regular blender; it’s a little harder to gauge progress, and you may need to pulse on and off to get a uniform texture.) As it starts coming together and becoming drinkable, try to judge the consistency and thin it with a little more milk if you like. Pour the shake into a deep, well-chilled glass and slurp it up with a straw.

  VARIATION: Chocolate fans may want to substitute chocolate ice cream for part or all of the vanilla ice cream. Note, however, that superchocolatey kinds may drown out the malt flavor.

  HOPPELPOPPEL: EGGNOG WITH A DIFFERENCE

  Distilled liquor figures in a tribe of heavily sweetened drinks enriched with eggs and cream or milk. Often they are associated with the Christmas or Easter holidays. In the Hispanic Americas these rich concoctions go by such names as rompope (Mexico) or crème de vie (Cuba), and are usually based on eggs and canned condensed milk, with or without evaporated milk, coconut milk, and fresh milk and/or cream. In most English-speaking countries the equivalents are made with fresh cream or milk-cream combinations, and are generically called “eggnogs.” The “nog” part has been rather shakily traced to an old dialect word for strong ale or beer; an early cousin called an “egg flip” was made by “flipping” a mulled beer-egg-sugar mixture from one container to another to raise a good head of froth.

  In America, eggnog seems to have had some popularity at least since the early nineteenth century. Lettice Bryan’s 1839 The Kentucky Housewife has a family-sized recipe that would look quite familiar now if it didn’t call for “rich sweet milk.” But the big nineteenth-century cooking manuals usually give only single-serving formulas as “restorative” or “fortifying” drinks for invalids. Not until the repeal of Prohibition did the major kitchen bibles regularly print recipes meant
for a crowd.

  By the time of my introduction to eggnog, creamy milk was a thing of the past and recipes usually called for cream or a cream-milk mixture. Most versions that I’ve encountered are cold, and involve separately beaten egg yolks and whites as well as whipped cream. You beat the yolks with sugar and booze (usually bourbon, Scotch, brandy, or rum) before adding the whipped egg whites and cream, which create a thick frothy topping. Some lily gilders also add more sweetening via a block (or individual dabs per serving) of vanilla ice cream, which gradually melts into the rest of the drink.

  I confess that I have lost the taste for cold, very sweet, frothy eggnog. I like it warm or hot, straightforwardly creamy, and offset by something astringent. To those who share my opinion I offer this version of the north German Hoppelpoppel, closely taken from Horst Scharfenberg’s lovely book Die deutsche Küche. (To the bewilderment of non-Germans, “Hoppelpoppel” can also refer to a dish of fried eggs and potatoes.) Its starting point is strong brewed tea sweetened with Kandiszucker, or lump sugar. Use the French A la Perruche lump sugar if you can get it.

  YIELD: 4 to 5 cups

  2 cups hot tea, brewed rather strong (use a plain unscented kind)

  About 3 ounces French white lump sugar (see above; about ½ cup) or 5 to 6 tablespoons granulated sugar

  4 egg yolks

  2 cups cream (half each heavy and light, or any preferred combination)

  ½–1 cup dark rum or any preferred spirit

  Mix the tea and sugar until the sugar is completely dissolved. Whisk the egg yolks smooth (not frothy), then whisk in the cream and the sweetened tea. Strain into the top of a double boiler set over hot water on low heat. Whisking constantly, warm the mixture until it is hot and slightly thickened. Carefully stir in the rum and serve at once in heatproof punch cups or demitasse cups.

  VARIATION: Some people make Hoppelpoppel with black coffee instead of tea.

  MILK PUNCH

  The star chemistry between milk and liquor used to be common knowledge, and deserves to be so again. Not just milk reinforced with eggs and cream to make eggnog; not just the industrially concentrated canned milk that goes into many Latin American holiday drinks. Given a little sugar and spice, plain old milk is a delightful partner for brandy, rum, whiskey, sherry, and nearly anything that goes into other sorts of punch.

  There is just one hitch, and by now you probably can repeat it by heart: Plain old milk isn’t what it used to be. Without fresh, creamy unhomogenized milk, much of the reason for making milk punch disappears. Recipes used to call for “rich milk,” “top milk,” and other tokens of yesteryear. Perhaps with the reappearance of fresher and better milk from small dairies, such terms will regain their former meaning. Milk punch made with mass-produced homogenized milk will win few converts, because it won’t have the dewy delicacy of fresh milk with the cream still present as a distinct element. If you can get hold of this necessary ingredient, I suggest the following general proportions per two servings:

  1 cup very fresh, creamy unhomogenized whole milk

  1 tablespoon very fresh unhomogenized light or heavy cream (optional; use if the milk seems on the lean side)

  2 tablespoons sugar syrup

  1½ jiggers bourbon, rye, or brandy

  Freshly grated nutmeg

  Briefly beat or whisk the cold milk in a small bar pitcher and add the optional cream. Stir in the syrup and liquor and pour into punch cups or small tumblers. Grate the nutmeg over the top and serve at once.

  YOGURT

  Introduction

  Homemade Yogurt: Some Thoughts

  Homemade Yogurt: Basic Recipe with Cows’ Milk

  Yogurt “Cheese” and “Cheese” Balls

  Tarator (Cold Yogurt Soup with Cucumbers and Walnuts)

  Yogurt-Garlic Sauce

  Cacık and Relatives

  Cucumber Raita

  Banana Raita

  Walnut-Yogurt Chutney

  Lamb Köfte in Yogurt Sauce

  Çılbır (Turkish Poached Eggs in Yogurt Sauce)

  “Curd Rice”

  Chicken Salad à la Tandoor

  Zucchini-Yogurt Salad with Fresh Dill

  Shrikhand (Saffron-Scented Yogurt Dessert)

  Revani (Yogurt-Semolina Cake with Lemon Syrup)

  About Yogurt-Based Drinks

  Ayran or Doogh (Turkish- or Persian-Style Yogurt Drink)

  About Lassi and Other Indian Soured-Milk Drinks

  Salt Lassi

  Punjabi-Style Sweet Lassi

  Mango Lassi

  Tarhana, Trahana, and Relatives

  Homemade Greek-Style Sour Trahana

  Turkish Tarhana Soup I and II

  Yogurt is as amazing a piece of human intervention in the destinies of foodstuffs as wine or bread. Probably it is as old as those other two miraculous discoveries, if not older. Like them, it first came into being somewhere around the eastern Mediterranean, or perhaps not far from the Fertile Crescent. (All eulogies of the “Mediterranean diet” that ignore the role of yogurt in the first-settled parts of the Mediterranean basin are leaving out something crucial.) The somewhat later prehistoric spread of dairying from its first core areas to realms as remote as Kenya, southern India, and the western ranges of the Chinese empire went hand in hand with the spread of yogurt.

  To understand yogurt in its glory, you must set aside some of the images attached to today’s commercial Western versions. Yogurt as made for millennia throughout huge chunks of the Old World usually isn’t called by that name; it goes by dozens (or more) of local names of which the Turkish “yogurt,” pronounced something like “yaawwhhrt” with a prolonged vowel, happens to be the one that got picked up in English during the early twentieth century. In its old strongholds it does not come in a choice of flavors. It has its own intrinsic flavor, combining the taste of a particular animal’s milk (sheep, goat, camel, cow, buffalo, or others) with some degree of lactic-acid sourness. Nobody expects to buy it already sweetened. Sweetness is only one possible flavor effect, achieved by adding honey or fruit preserves—or in India, unrefined palm or cane sugar—when you eat it. It may or may not have a consistency resembling anything you’ve bought in the supermarket yogurt section. Undoctored yogurt can be nearly as pourable as cream or as firm as a thickened pudding, again depending on the animal that gave the milk. It is beautifully creamy, because people born to yogurt-making are also born to the use of unhomogenized whole milk. It is one of the joys of life.

  Yogurt was also one of the staffs of life, from prehistoric times on, in the regions I have called the Diverse Sources Belt and the Bovine and Buffalo Belt. Nobody knows how ancient it is. Though archaeological sites can be troves of evidence for such things as animal bones and plant seeds, less durable foods like milk products generally disintegrate and disappear fast. But yogurt must be almost as old an article of diet as unfermented milk in the first Near Eastern centers of animal husbandry—and certainly became more important as regards settled culinary practice. Under the once inescapable reality of being produced during very hot weather with no refrigeration, milk is a fickle cooking ingredient; it turns into yogurt or something yogurtlike within a matter of hours. In that state it is not only more stable than unfermented milk, but digestible by more people because of its reduced lactose content.

  Here it probably is a good idea to define yogurt, or to explain that it’s not strictly definable. The simplest description is: a mildly sour fermentation of milk colonized by lactic-acid bacteria of the general kind called thermophilic, or “heat-loving.” These not only tolerate but prefer temperatures that would knock some kindred microorganisms out of commission—110° to 120°F, a level not at all hard to achieve on a summer’s day in Yogurtistan or India.

  Of course, the ambient air anywhere in the world is a soup of many miscellaneous bacteria, and the first wild fermentations of raw milk must have been a microbiological free-for-all with all kinds of edible, inedible, or positively dangerous results. Perhaps a series of lucky experiences encou
raged populations of the right bugs to cluster around places where milk was being collected. Then at some unknown point, people learned to modify wild fermentation and give the desired bacteria a leg up on the competition by saving some of the last batch and using it to inoculate a new batch of milk.

  It is tempting to think of yogurt-culture lineages stretching back into antiquity like royal dynasties. But as the professionals who grow bacterial cultures for industrial use know, keeping any strain pure and unchanging is impossible without the tools of modern science. From time to time natural yogurt “starters” will become easy prey for microbial enemies, or either lose their potency or develop somewhat different flavor effects through mutation. Nonetheless, it’s a reasonable guess that most yogurt through the ages has involved the combined action of two particular lactic-acid bacteria, or their ancestors. As they exist today, they are usually known as Lactobacillus bulgaricus and Streptococcus thermophilus. (In the last twenty years, specialists have rebaptized both with new names, but the older ones are still the most common.) As I use the term in this chapter, “yogurt” is the product of these two principal actors’ colonizing any sort of milk.

  The starter method of putting certain chosen bacteria to work was a major if not completely foolproof advance in reliably turning milk into yogurt. A second leap forward—also of unknown date—came when people learned that yogurt became thicker and more flavorful if you boiled the milk and let it cool to just the right temperature range before inoculating it with the starter. (This also helped the starter bacteria more reliably get there first and multiply until they created a slightly acid environment hostile to many harmful microorganisms.) Heating the milk to a boil, or even letting it cook down quite a bit before inoculating it, became a nearly universal practice among the world’s yogurt-making peoples. This is why anyone who knows yogurt will raise an eyebrow at the words “raw-milk yogurt”; I either avoid buying anything so labeled or try to question the seller about the term. If the milk really was raw, the yogurt will lack something in flavor and texture.