Homemade Yogurt

(re-post from May 26 2008)

Having forgotten the reason for this lovely old jug being on the counter the other morning, I greeted it with the delight that suddenly remembering can bring.  No, it wasn't that I had made tea the night before to have a cup ready and waiting. 

It was this.  Homemade yogurt. 
My first experience of homemade yogurt was while living in India many years ago and the taste and procedure has since made me consider all yogurt made in the kitchen as dahi.

I have made it using a glass bowl wrapped in a towel and left to set in a closed cupboard (we had cats who knew how to uncover a bowl but never managed to open a cupboard door) overnight and then I discovered those Yogtherms, I think they are called – a plastic container inside a thickness of styrofoam inside another container – and this served me well for many years but I stopped making yogurt ages ago and have no idea what happened to mine. 

As I was thinking about what to use I caught sight of the old thermos which does keep my tea nicely warm overnight and decided to use this.  Well – it worked perfectly and the dahi in the bowl is what plain milk and a bit of yogurt as a starter produces.  It smells great and tastes delicious.  Makes me think of warm chappatis and flavourful dishes.

This latest wish to make yogurt is due to my holistic doctor suggesting various things to get rid of a lingering  sinus congestion, one of them being ingesting probiotics  for good gut bacteria; he says commercial yogurt does not have enough of this  because of what they do to it to  give it shelf life. 

I didn't have to search out a recipe or think of what to do – the method was there in my fingers.  (Some knitting techniques have paralleled this;  I have heard others express the same.) 

Into a heavy bottomed saucepan went a pint of milk and was heated on the stove just until it was about to boil;  you have to watch it carefully – bubbles form around the circumference and, just before they make a rush for the center and boil over, the pot is removed from the heat and left to cool.  The degree of coolness is reached when I could stick my baby finger into the milk and have it hot enough to be able to keep it in the milk but not so hot that I immediately removed it.  I am not sure who taught me this – I expect it was someone in India – and it continues to give me satisfaction to rely on the senses. 

Once the milk was cooled 'just right' I stirred in two tablespoons of a plain commercial yogurt which I have been using and which has the least amount of ingredients -  milk and culture – but apparently the pasteurization  destroys too much of the good stuff.  In any case it is so simple to make up complete yogurt. 

Then I poured the milk mixture into the thermos which I had rinsed out with warm water.  Put the lid on and left it for twelve hours on the counter.  Greeted it happily in the morning.  Breathed in the slightly yeasty still – warm fragrance.  Had a taste.  It reminded me of India.  And many Canadian kitchens since.

It got put into the frig and I keep taking tablespoons now and then – nice medicine.

However I must add the sequel.  The thermos is not meant for yogurt and trying to clean it was not easy so I got out the bottle brush and was scrubbing away when, all of a sudden – pop!  More like a kaboom!  I broke the thermos part.  Lovely old thermos is now in the garbage.  A garage sale turned up a brand new silver thermos with a wide mouth.  The second batch of yogurt using starter from the first will be even better.