[Sca-cooks] Almond milk

[Bronwynmgn at aol.com]

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In a message dated 1/19/2002 2:47:06 PM Eastern Standard Time,
afmmurphy at earthlink.net writes:


> I've seen that almond milk is used in any number of recipes. I've a
> question. Does this at all resemble commercial almond milk? Can that be
> substituted, if time is a factor? Is it different?  Or does it just make
> more sense to make your own, because you don't want a full quart, or
> it's expensive, or...
>
>

Homemade vaguely resembles commercial almond milk.  The commercial ones tend
to have a couple of natural additives like carragenan (which I belive is
something from seaweed which helps keep it form separating?), and sometimes
flavoring added.
I have used commercial almond milk for quick tests of dishes, or at camping
events if I didn't want to deal with making my own (and didn't think to grind
the almonds ahead of time to take with me :-))- the commercial stuff is good
for that because it doesn't have to be refrigerated until you open it.

For anything where I'd be serving it to someone other than myself or my
household as a period dish, like at a feast, I make my own.  It really isn't
that difficult.  I believe I've used roasted almonds before; I currently have
a bunch of raw slivered unblanched almonds I'm working with, because for some
reason Forme of Cury specifically  requests unblanched almonds drawn up with
whatever.
I grind them up in the food processor with whatever the specified liquid is
and then strain through cheesecloth.  You can reuse the same amount of ground
almonds a number of times; I easily got 8 cups of milk from 1 cup of almonds
over about 4 strainings, and could have kept going with the same batch.  Just
stick them back in the food processor with more liquid and whirl them a
little more, then strain again.

Brangwayna Morgan