Milk

by Anne Mendelson

  VARIATIONS: You can make cultured buttermilk from either all skim milk, whole milk mixed with skim in any desired proportion, or whole milk mixed with half-and-half (nonultrapasteurized, please) in any desired proportion.

  I usually don’t add salt, but if you like, mix in anything from a pinch to half a teaspoon per quart after culturing. If you have used unhomogenized milk, stir the top cream into the rest of the buttermilk before drinking or using.

  HOMEMADE SOUR CREAM

  Call it “Homemade Crème Fraîche” if you like, though the name is a stretch. A major difference between American commercial sour cream and the better versions of crème fraîche sold in this country is that the latter are made from richer cream and don’t need the extraneous thickeners that manufacturers add to offset the relative thinness of sour cream.

  Make sour cream at home without such disguises, using light cream that contains the usual commercial minimum of 18 percent milkfat, and you will end up with something that tastes okay but has little body. Make it with heavy cream as suggested here, and you’ll see what you’ve been missing.

  As for flavor—well, sour cream inoculated with cultured buttermilk has great sour cream flavor. Will it taste just like your favorite brand of crème fraîche? Probably not. Today’s American makers often play around with different combinations of mesophilic bacteria in order to bring out certain notes of fragrance and flavor in the finished crème fraîche. This is one case in which real perfectionists may want to try ordering a direct-set culture from a cheese-supply company (this page). Remember, however, that the mixture of bacteria you end up buying may or may not resemble that used by a particular crème fraîche maker. Meanwhile, you can rejoice in the ease of making really excellent sour cream.

  As always, check labels for the presence of live bacteria—which is why you can’t just use commercial sour cream or crème fraîche to inoculate cream for your own. Usually they have been pasteurized or subjected to some heat treatment after packaging, thereby inactivating any cultures. If you find a brand that works, you’re luckier than I’ve been.

  YIELD: 2 cups

  2 cups nonultrapasteurized heavy cream, preferably unhomogenized

  ¼ cup commercial cultured buttermilk with active cultures, well shaken before measuring

  Mix the cream and buttermilk and let stand undisturbed at room temperature (70° to 80°F, preferably above 75°F) until thickened and lightly soured, just as for the preceding Homemade Cultured Buttermilk. Refrigerate, tightly covered, for up to a week.

  HERRING WITH SOUR CREAM SAUCE

  For centuries both soured milk (or cream) and salt fish were eaten by everyone in the Northeastern Cow Belt—peasants and princes, shtetl dwellers and their oppressors. Together they formed one of the region’s archetypal flavor marriages. The pairing of cured herring and sour cream crossed the Atlantic along with Ashkenazic Jews, Poles of all religious beliefs, and assorted Scandinavians. It even made it to American soi-disant “gourmet” circles as an appetizer for a generation or so after herring with mild sweet-and-sour cures appeared for sale in jars around 1940. Then cured and pickled herring vanished from favor among the leaders of taste. Today there are all-purpose kitchen bibles, up-to-date Jewish cookbooks, and even some would-be encyclopedic fish cookbooks with no mention of herring, period, let alone the once-popular combination with sour cream.

  Please be persuaded to give this immensely satisfying appetizer another lease on life. There is a problem: finding the fish. You need to live within reach of an old-fashioned store selling cured herring in barrels to a Polish, German, Russian, Dutch, Eastern European Jewish, or other ex-Baltic and North Sea clientele. Some Russian-American groceries sell decent pickled herring in large jars or plastic pouches. (Ignore all recipes that tell you to simply start with a jar of ordinary commercial pickled herring—one look at typical lists of ingredients should send you fleeing from these syrupy products.)

  Try to buy fillets of plain salted herring. If you don’t see these labeled, are not clear on what different labels like “schmaltz” and “matjes” mean, or run into language barriers in the store, just get whatever looks appealing. If only whole herring are on sale, ask someone to fillet them for you. When you get home, taste what you’ve bought to see whether it’s powerfully salty, mild, or sweet-and-sour. You can get good results with any of these.

  Fans of herring with sour cream are wholly non-unanimous on such details as the preferred variety of onion or how sweet or sour the sauce should be. I give the onion (the usual yellow kind) a brief preliminary soaking in slightly sweetened ice water to crisp it and take out a bit of the oniony sting, and I make the sour cream sauce fairly but not overpoweringly sweet. Taste as you go along and adjust the sugar and vinegar to your preference. The grated apple is a Polish touch that splendidly complements the fish and sour cream flavors.

  YIELD: 4 to 6 servings as appetizer

  8 large cured herring fillets, preferably from plain salted herring (about 12 ounces in all)

  Half of a medium onion

  About 2 tablespoons sugar, or to taste, with a little more for soaking the onion

  2 tablespoons red or white wine vinegar, or to taste

  2 cups sour cream, preferably Russian-type smetana, or 1 cup each sour cream and very good crème fraîche (I use the Vermont Butter and Cheese brand.)

  Half of a large, crisp, juicy tart apple (Omit if good apples are unavailable.)

  ½ to 1 teaspoon salt, or to taste

  1 or more tablespoons of prepared (not creamed) horseradish or Polish-style mustard (optional)

  Fresh dill for garnish

  First rinse the fish well under cold water and taste a tiny bit. If it is mild-flavored enough to be eaten as is, simply blot it dry and proceed. Otherwise, place it in a large bowl, cover well with cold water, and let soak, refrigerated, for anything from 2 to 24 hours. Change the water at frequent intervals, tasting the herring, until it is mild enough to suit your preference. Drain, blot thoroughly dry with plenty of paper towels, and cut into 1-inch pieces.

  Slice the onion into paper-thin half moons and drop the slices into a bowl of ice water with 1 to 2 teaspoons of sugar dissolved in it. Let soak for about 5 minutes before draining and blotting thoroughly dry. Layer the herring and onion in a small glass or crockery bowl or container.

  Put 2 tablespoons each of sugar and vinegar in a small nonreactive saucepan, and heat, stirring, just long enough to dissolve the sugar. Whisk the sour cream smooth in a bowl and whisk in the sugar-vinegar solution.

  Peel and core the apple half, grate on the coarse side of a box grater, and stir into the sauce. Taste for salt (the herring after enough soaking will contribute next to no salt, so overkill is unlikely) and gradually mix in enough to balance the other flavors along with a little more vinegar if you like, or more sugar dissolved in a teaspoon or two of warm water. If desired, add horseradish or mustard to taste. (These are an improvement only if the fish needs perking up or no tasty apples are to be had.) Pour the sauce over the herring and onion and refrigerate, tightly covered, overnight or for at least 6 hours. Serve garnished with fresh dill. It is wonderful with coarse-textured black or sour rye bread.

  SMOKED WHITEFISH SALAD

  More properly, “smoked whitefish dip” or “spread”—but as a staple of New York Jewish brunch tables it’s universally known as “salad.” If you don’t already understand the harmony of smoked fish with something creamy and slightly sour, this simple combination is the perfect example. The only messy part is removing the whitefish bones, which are many and stubborn.

  YIELD: About 2½ cups

  2 pounds smoked whitefish

  ½ to 1 cup sour cream

  2 to 3 scallions or 1 small onion, minced

  1 celery rib, minced

  1 tablespoon prepared horseradish (optional)

  Fresh dill for garnish

  Remove and discard the skin and bones from the fish. Flake the meat with your fingers; you should have about 2 cups. Put it in
a bowl and mix in enough sour cream for a spreadable consistency. Stir in the scallions, celery, and optional horseradish. Scoop the mixture into a serving bowl, sprinkle a little chopped dill over the top, and serve with coarse dark rye or pumpernickel bread. It will keep in the refrigerator, tightly covered, for two to three days.

  BUTTERMILK-CARAWAY SOUP

  It would be impossible to overstate the importance of utterly plain, bare-bones milk dishes in peasant diets throughout much of Europe well into the twentieth century. Bread or potatoes with milk or sour milk once made up a very quick square meal in millions of households from Ireland to Lithuania, Switzerland to Siberia. This caraway-spiked Austrian and Bavarian soup gives you an idea of just how minimalist a country breakfast or supper could be—though with well-flavored buttermilk and sturdy black bread I’d take it over American breakfast cereal and milk any day.

  If you should go on a buttermaking kick and have some thick, tasty ripened buttermilk to dedicate to this purpose, you will be astonished at the goodness of the soup.

  YIELD: 4 large servings

  4 thick slices of sour pumpernickel or rye bread, or any coarse-textured sour-flavored bread, broken or cut into chunks

  2 cups water

  2 teaspoons salt, or to taste

  2 to 3 teaspoons caraway seeds, lightly bruised with mortar and pestle

  2 tablespoons flour

  2 cups cultured buttermilk

  Any preferred green herb (dill, chives, marjoram), minced or snipped

  The bread must be hard and stale, so slice it and let it sit for a day or two before starting the soup.

  Bring the water to a boil with the salt and caraway. Mix the flour to a smooth paste with a little of the buttermilk, then stir in the remaining buttermilk. (This keeps the soup from curdling.) Whisk the buttermilk into the water over medium heat and let come to a boil. Distribute the bread in serving bowls, pour the soup over it, and serve scattered with the herb of your choice.

  VARIATION: By thrifty consensus this soup was generally made with equal parts of buttermilk and water. You can, however, use all buttermilk. Stir the flour with a little of the buttermilk, combine with the rest, and add the salt and caraway. Heat just to a boil over low heat and serve as directed.

  MICHAEL FIELD’S “CHŁODNIK”

  (COLD SAVORY BUTTERMILK SOUP)

  Decades ago, this recipe in Michael Field’s Cooking School (1965) provided my first glimpse of the magic that results when you combine fresh, slightly sour forms of milk or cream with strong, provocative flavors like garlic and pickling brine. It is still my favorite cold soup, though I now know that Field’s description “a poem of a Russian iced soup” needs some correcting. Russians call this and a family of similar soups okroshka. Chłodnik (pronounced roughly “huh-WOD-nik”) is the Polish counterpart (see this page for a gorgeous version with beets).

  Over the years I have replaced Field’s canned shrimp with fresh shrimp and dropped the fennel that was in the original recipe. I also usually leave out the hard-boiled egg garnish (though it’s a classic part of such soups), and wilt the cucumbers in salt because they then marry better with the other flavors. Use sauerkraut juice from good delicatessen sauerkraut or a brand put up in glass jars or plastic pouches, never cans.

  YIELD: 8 to 10 servings

  ½ pound medium shrimp, briefly poached in the shell

  4 small Persian-type or 2 American-type cucumbers

  1 tablespoon salt

  2 garlic cloves

  2 cups sour cream, preferably Russian-type smetana

  5 cups cultured buttermilk, at least 1.5 percent milkfat and made without salt or gums

  ½ cup sauerkraut juice

  4 scallions, whites and part of green stalks

  Freshly ground white or black pepper

  A large handful of fresh dill

  2 hard-boiled eggs (optional)

  Shell and if necessary devein the shrimp. Cut into coarse dice.

  Peel and seed the cucumbers. Cut into medium dice (about ¾ inch), toss in a bowl with the salt, and drain in a colander for 20 to 30 minutes.

  Mince the garlic very fine and place in a large nonreactive bowl with the sour cream, buttermilk, and sauerkraut juice. Whisk to combine thoroughly. Rinse the salted cucumbers under cold running water, squeeze as dry as possible, and stir into the buttermilk. Trim the scallions, chop fine, and add along with the reserved shrimp. Season with pepper to taste and a little salt if desired (it may need none). Refrigerate, covered, for 4 to 8 hours; I find that it gets harsh if kept longer than overnight.

  When ready to serve, snip the dill into bits, chop the optional hard-boiled eggs, and scatter a little of each over every portion.

  CHŁODNIK LITEWSKI

  (POLISH COLD BEET SOUP)

  Borscht” is what many American cooks will want to call this soup. But it couldn’t be more different from the sweet kinds that often represent the Russian borshch in American kitchens. It belongs to a family of cold soups, known in all countries of the Northeastern Cow Belt, that are based on sour milk or cream and some other sour principle, usually sauerkraut or pickle brine or some version of the fermented drink called kvas in Russia, kwas in Poland. Beets are just one of the things that can go into them.

  Poles are particularly dedicated to this kind of cold soup (“chłodnik” in Polish), which they make in an amazing spectrum of different guises. The original secrets of flavor are two: Chłodnik used to be made from sour whole milk with all the butterfat intact—in other words, something at least two or three times as creamy as the usual American cultured buttermilk. To come close, you must throw in a good slug of sour cream. In addition, Poles and most other Eastern Europeans have a summer-fall tradition of pickling nearly anything that can conceivably be pickled, from apples to tomatoes. Cooks thus regularly have (or used to have) several different kinds of brine on hand to add to chłodnik—or they might put in some kwas/kvas made from bread or beets. The resulting soups, often enriched with crunchy raw radishes or cucumbers, are liquid quasi-salads as gloriously varied and wonderfully refreshing as the gazpachos of Spain. Perhaps the most famous and certainly the most dramatic-looking of the Polish chłodnik tribe is this classic version made from beets and beet greens. Poles attribute it to Lithuania, at one time a Polish possession (hence the name “Litewski”).

  If you live near Polish, Russian, or Serbian communities with stores selling barrels of summer vegetables and fruits in brine, be sure to get some in season and add a little of the brine to the soup in lieu of sauerkraut juice. The color is most beautiful when a grated raw beet is mixed in at the end.

  YIELD: About 2 quarts (8 cups)

  4 to 5 medium beets, with leafy tops

  4 to 6 radishes

  3 to 4 small, thin-skinned Persian-type cucumbers, or an 8-inch piece of an English hothouse cucumber

  6 to 8 scallions, whites and part of green tops

  2 garlic cloves, or to taste

  1 quart cultured buttermilk, at least 1.5 percent milkfat and made without salt or gums

  1 cup sour cream, preferably Russian-type smetana

  ½ to ⅔ cup juice from sauerkraut or full-sour kosher-style dill pickles

  2 to 3 teaspoons salt, or to taste

  A large handful of fresh dill

  2 to 3 hard-boiled eggs, chopped (optional)

  Cut off the beet tops at least half an inch above the root and rinse thoroughly. Scrub the beets well. Bring a large saucepan of water to a boil and add 3 or 4 of the beets along with the greens. Reduce the heat to medium-low, and cook, covered, until the beets are tender when probed with a knife, usually 25 to 40 minutes. Drain the beets and greens separately, and let cool.

  Meanwhile, scrub the radishes and cucumbers and grate both on the coarse side of a box grater. Clean, trim, and mince the scallions. Mince the garlic, or crush it to a paste using a mortar and pestle.

  Chop the drained beet greens fairly coarse. Peel the beets, and cut into fine slivers or dice.

  No
w combine the buttermilk, sour cream, ½ cup of the sauerkraut juice, and 2 teaspoons of the salt in a large bowl, whisking to a smooth consistency. Stir in all the vegetables. Grate the remaining raw beet on the fine side of a box grater and add the pulp and juice to the soup. Taste for seasoning and add more brine or salt as you prefer. Refrigerate, covered, at least 4 to 6 hours or overnight. Serve very cold, garnished with plenty of fresh dill and the optional chopped hard-boiled eggs.

  KADHI OR KARHI

  (NORTH INDIAN THICK BUTTERMILK SOUP)

  This soupy sauce or saucelike soup from the Punjab and northern India is one of the many dishes caught up in the great Indian-American confusion about the difference between buttermilk and yogurt (see this page). Having first encountered it (in Madhur Jaffrey’s An Invitation to Indian Cooking) made with cultured buttermilk, I’ve remained fond of that choice.

  Kadhi is usually made with a flotilla of small chickpea-flour dumpling-fritters called pakodis or pakoras. I think it is also good either by itself or with a medley of vegetables. Don’t hesitate to omit any of the suggested choices or add more.

  YIELD: About 8 servings

  ⅔ cup Indian chickpea flour (besan)

  6 cups water

  2 cups cultured buttermilk or plain whole-milk yogurt

  4 tablespoons ghee or vegetable oil

  A pinch of ground asafetida

  ¼ teaspoon each fenugreek seeds, Indian brown mustard seeds, cumin seeds, and nigella (you can use more or less of any)

  6 to 8 fresh curry leaves

  4 small dried hot peppers (or to taste)