The Indian Cookery Course by Monisha Bharadwaj

Author:Monisha Bharadwaj
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Octopus
Published: 2018-08-29T00:00:00+00:00

YOGURT

Yogurt, ‘dahi’ or ‘tayir’ as it is called in India, is integral to Indian food. Most Indians eat it several times a week if not every day. North Indians make lassi or raita or eat it with breads called paratha, whereas in the south they finish each meal with tayir and rice. In India, yogurt is also called curd. Unlike in the West, where milk is curdled with acid to form curd in the first step towards making cheese, curd in India refers to homemade yogurt.

The taste and texture of yogurt is important. The most preferred one is mildly tart but with a sweetness that ‘quenches the thirst’. It should be thick and not watery. The microflora in yogurt help digestion and in many parts of India, a meal is concluded with a thin drink called ‘chaas’ made by mixing a little yogurt with water. ‘Chaas’ is also the name given to the buttermilk left behind when butter is churned out of yogurt or cream.

Yogurt has been eaten in India since prehistoric times. The Rigveda mentions it as mixed with ground meal: ‘The other (Pusan the Nourisher) longs for curd and meal’. The Arthashastra (c.350–283 BCE), a treatise on statecraft, advises how to deal with spies who offer you poisoned curd, and marinating meat with curd is mentioned in the Ain-i-Akbari, the Mughal emperor Akbar’s memoirs.

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