Subject: Re: SC - Persian milk?

[Philip & Susan Troy]

> Date: Tue, 09 May 2000 20:09:58 -0800
> From: Kerri Canepa <kerric at pobox.alaska.net>
> Subject: Re: SC - Persian milk?
> 
> Greetings the list,
> 
> I have been watching with some interest for any response to the question Henry
> posted concerning Persian milk. Did anyone answer and I missed it? Does anyone
> have an answer? Ras? Cariadoc? 
> 
> Enquiring cooks want to know...
> 
> Cedrin
> Princess Oertha

Lord Henry and Assorted Worthies ask about Persian milk... sorry, I
kinda figured that by the time I got to this one someone else would.
Here are what pass for my thoughts, such as they are:

I understand Persian milk to be similar to yogurt. However, as Lord
Henry mentions, the context of the recipe he's working with suggests to
him that ordinary yogurt would curdle if used as described. So either
Persian milk is not just plain yogurt as we know it around here, or
perhaps the recipe intends for it to curdle, or there may be some
mistranslation somewhere along the line. I can't really help with these
questions, but perhaps approach the problem from the opposite direction?

Ways for milk to not curdle, assuming that it's not supposed to. As
Henry mentions, stabilizing it with some kind of gelatinized/cooked
starch would be one way. This method is used today in the various
yogurt/garlic/mint sauces for dishes such as shushbarrak (a sort of
ravioli-thingy found also in Al-Baghdadi, IIRC), and the method of
stabilizing with starch could conceivably have been done in period,
although I don't recall seeing a recipe that includes it. Another modern
example would be the various uses of kishik, a convenience-food
preparation of yogurt dried with ultra-fine bulgur, traditonally on a
sunny rooftop, and available commercially in better Middle Eastern
markets in funky Romano-cheese-smelling ingots, or as a powder. It's
used to thicken and flavor soups and sauces.

Another possibility might be that Persian milk is cultured from milk
that's been cooked a long time. Proteins will curdle when boiled, but
some of them will reverse this process after hours of boiling, rather
like some old beer recipes that call for long boiling to first separate
out heavier (and cloud-inducing) proteins, and redissolving them by
boiling to make a higher-gravity beer. This might be possible with
casein and such, and I can think of an example or three of milk cooked
to a thick goop without curdling. Dulce de leche would be one example,
although this may be stabilized by sugar syrup. Various Italian and
Scandinavian dishes of meat cooked in milk, very slowly, might be other
examples of this.

Another consideration is that the yogurt, assuming that's what Persian
milk is, is probably not cow's milk yogurt, and yogurt made from goat's
or sheep's milk behaves differently. You might have different results
using goat's milk yogurt, since goat's milk has its fat emulsified more
severely into it -- it is effectively "shortened" -- which means it
tends to thicken or gel more than curdle, in a cheesemaking process. You
may find that the same is true in cookery applications for goat's milk
yogurt as Persian milk. Again, assuming that Persian milk _is_ yogurt.
The only documentation I've seen for that assumption has been on this
list, so it's pretty much a matter of faith. 
 
> >Does anyone have any useful information on Persian milk? Other period
> >cookbooks that use the term, other information about the words, evidence of
> >its use in modern times, boiling experiments, information about Arabic words
> >for "boil" and "simmer," etc.?
> >
> >Henry of Maldon/Alex Clark

HTH,

Adamantius, hoping that Lord Henry sees this as I can't seem to find his address
- -- 
Phil & Susan Troy

troy at asan.com