But DO NOT confuse the two people.

Thank you Dale!

And now back to cooking. Yoghurt.

As I've mentioned, there are several products sold as yoghurt around the world (yes in Sweden too) that has absolutely nothing to do with the very healthy, real product. What's called Greek or Turkish yoghurt, if genuine, is the real one.

And another warning, before I go on, be aware of the unfortunate fact, that the US milk can be of lesser quality, make sure you get your dairy products from a reputable producer. And when possible, try to get imports from EU (Greek and Turkey are both EU members)

US rules allow milk to have nearly double the level of somatic cells - white blood cells that fight bacterial infection - than what the EU allows. In practice, this means more pus in your milk, and more infections going untreated in cows. Much US milk would be deemed unfit for human consumption in the EU.

With that out of the way, here we go.

As I've mentioned earlier, real yoghurt has 10% fat. Making it from milk (3% fat) means that you have to filter away two thirds of the result (the whey). But I have a solution that does not create any waste. If you mix four parts of 3% milk with one part of 40% cream, you get almost exactly 10% fat.

Ingredients (may be scaled up or down any way you like):

400 g milk
100 g cream
50-100 g yoghurt (the more, the faster the fermentation starts)

Set the oven at 40C.

In a saucepan, whip up milk and cream. Slowly heat the mixture to exactly 84C under occasional stirring, especially at the bottom, to prevent any burns -- I use a spatula.

Put the pan in a larger pan with water to the same height as the mixture in the smaller pan. Let it cool down to 42C. The outer water should by now be somewhere around 35C.

Mix in the yoghurt. I usually just scrape out my yoghurt container when it contains too little to give me a full breakfast bowl and never cared to actually weigh it.

Put the lid on the small pot and put it all in the oven. This double pan (bain-marie) set-up will prevent the yoghurt temperature to fluctuate as the oven thermostat clicks on and off (hysteresis) and keeps it stable. If you have a modern oven, with exact electronic regulation, you may skip the entire bain-marie thing.

Wait at least 24 hours, longer is good, before you turn off the oven. Don't worry, it takes very little electricity to keep it just 15-20 degrees above room temperature. The yoghurt gets better with time, even when kept in the fridge.

And finally a few words about mildew. Mildew lives happily in temperatures down to 0C, so the temperature in your fridge (4-6C) will not prevent mildew to form. However, what mildew can not survive is low humidity. Now, it so happens, that your fridge is by far the most dry place in your home. Unless you open the door too often and too long, it will typically be in the low tens.

But when you put the lid on something, or wrap something in plastic, you keep the moisture within at a pleasant level for the mildew. Ergo, don't, and you never have to throw away something with that green, furry stuff on the surface again. Yes you will see the surface slowly drying out if you leave it untouched for many days, but at least that's neither dangerous nor tasting or looking disgustingly... 8-)



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