Think I’ll try out making yogurt in my Insta Pot. Will report back with results.
Awww, now I’m nostalgic. My mom believed yogurt was good for “all women” and therefore also for my childhood dog, a female mini poodle. But she would never be caught dead swapping germs with a dog, so Tina always got the last spoonful. A frugal type, my mother would scrape, scrape, scrape the yogurt cup clean with the spoon, then allow Tina to delicately lap that last spoonful.
In her old age, Tina became somewhat deaf* and no longer responded much to commands. Amusingly enough, the sound of a spoon in a yogurt cup hits some magical wavelength she still could hear … from across the house, and would wake her from a dead sleep.
There are many different kinds of yogurt, with different degrees of “authenticity” – whatever the hell that even means – and perhaps the posters here who dislike it have just not had the type that appeals to them. My first reaction here would be to say that I love yogurt in its ordinary form as well as yogurt drinks, but a real yogurt connoisseur would probably scoff at the kinds I actually eat, which are sweet desert-like concoctions mixed with fruit and probably loaded with sugar and preservatives. I don’t care, it’s a nice dessert, and I like to tell myself that it’s “good for me” even if it’s not, leave me alone. I actually don’t eat all that much of it. My real weakness is Haagen-Dazs vanilla ice cream bars.
I just wing it, but something like 1 cup yogurt, 2 TBS tamarind paste, 1 TBS garam masala, and 1 TBS kosher salt is probably about right. Score the lamb a little so the marinade gets deep into the meat.
As I grew up, many of my school years included coming home each day and having yogurt as a delicious after-school snack. That was the 1970’s when stores seemed to have their own brand of dairy distributor and the offerings were [insert brand here] Yogurt with vanilla or chocolate or berries of some kind. The chocolate was always a weird taste and the rest were nice and sweet-offset-by-the-tanginess-of-yogurt. The variations were fruit-on-the-bottom or mixed and either regular or low-fat. Nobody was even bothering with non-fat back then so I assumed the fat part of milk was needed to feed the yogurt bacteria.
In the summer (between school years) Mom would fill those little fill-and-freeze popsicle molds with yogurt instead of juice. The resulting treats were delicious – though never as good as ice cream (there simply is no substitute for ice cream). I’ve noted in the Smoothie thread that I use a bit of yogurt in my smoothie concoctions.
The latest fad in high-protein yogurts (Greek, Icelandic, et cetera) is disappointing. They seem to overshadow the smooth creaminess of basic yogurt with a thick chalky goop that always feels like it’s quickly sinking to the bottom of my gut. I tried a lot of varieties and I just don’t bother buying them any more. Fortunately, some of the grocery stores still have their ‘generic’ brand of basic yogurt that I still like – and I still find them delicious!
–G!
And if you’re complaining that yogurt is milk-gone-bad-with-age…
[ul]
[li]Cheese = Milk gone moldy with age[/li][li]Beer = grain & hops & water, digested & gone-bad-with-age[/li][li]Wine = fruit & water, digested & gone-bad-with-age[/li][li]Sake = rice & water, digested & gone-bad-with-age[/li][li]Vinegar = wine or sake (see above) gone-bad-with-age[/li][li]harder liquor = beer or wine (i.e. other stuff & water gone-bad-with-age) distilled[/li][li]Kimchee & Sauerkraut = Cabbage gone-bad-with-age[/li][li]Politicians = Idealists gone-bad-with-age ;)[/li][/ul]
I love yoghurt. in most every form - on top of my muesli, in my lassi, in the cacık with my meze. in the raita on my thali. I just don’t like the overly jellied stuff you get in Western supermarkets.
Unflavored/unsweetened yogurt would be like making ice cream with only milk, heavy creme, & eggs.
Yes it’s ice cream, but a flavorless base. I don’t think it would sell. It needs some sugar, salt, and vanilla extract. Optionally, adding nuts & some kind of fruit or berries makes it even better.
All of the above, save cheese, politicians and maybe sake are straight up yeast or bacterial fermentation, and in some cases both, such as vinegar. There may be an aging step, but the main thing is the fermentation.
The only ‘digestion’ I can think of in that list might be malting/mashing of the barley for beer, and the activity of the koji in sake, both of which change starch to sugars which can be fermented. But wine is just crushed and fermented, just like sauerkraut.
Yogurt is very similar to those- it’s fermented with specific bacteria.
But it’s ALL done under controlled conditions; that’s why wine isn’t just spoiled grape juice, and yogurt isn’t the same thing as cheese, buttermilk, kefir, quark, sour cream, creme fraiche, etc…
I can remember when I first saw yogurt advertised on TV – maybe 55-60 years ago? Knudsen brand showing a guy sitting outside a Swiss chalet eating it. I think they were going for that European ski vacation vibe. I’ve always liked yogurt in many different ways. In high school I got addicted to blueberry yogurt as a dip for Fritos. But once I’d tasted full fat Greek yogurt I haven’t eaten anything else. Love mango lassi! Yoplait is weird and kinda gross and not really yogurt.
Also, in high school a woman I worked with at the local public library gave me some of her yogurt as a starter to make my own. She was of Armenian background and either her mother or grandmother had brought the “ancestor” of my starter with her to the US. Her son told me that it would be great if every time one of these women dipped her spoon in the yogurt for starter for the next batch she got the same spoonful. How old that yogurt would be! Of course, it doesn’t really matter since the bacteria is descended from all the bacteria that was used from the beginning.
I actually don’t eat all that much of it. My real weakness is Haagen-Dazs vanilla ice cream bars.