[Sca-cooks] Almond milk question

[Alex Clark]

At 05:11 PM 3/16/2004 -0500, AEllin wrote:
>So I'm finally trying this. Working with a recipe that blithely tells me 
>to take my good almond milk...
>
>Do I strain it first? I'm then going to be thickening it, and draining it, 
>and using everything left in the cloth... but I'm not sure if "everything" 
>includes the suspended solids or not. I do know I should blanch the 
>almonds first, so I don't have any peel, which suggests I don't strain? I 
>was originally assuming that to get milk, I would - but now I'm not sure.

Which recipe is this? Most of the recipes for cream/butter of almonds in 
_Curye on Inglysch_ and _Two Fifteenth-Century Cookery-Books_ tend to 
specify that you blanch the almonds, grind, mix with water, and "draw" them 
(as in, through a strainer). If this one doesn't mention the method, I 
would assume that it was the same as the method usually specified. Some 
recipes calling for almond milk use abbreviated instructions, such as "draw 
up a good thick almond milk". This suggests that the authors used various 
levels of detail to describe the same process for making almond milk.

In recipes for cream/butter of almonds, there seems to be a preference for 
thick almond milk, so it is not likely that the aftermilk (from a second 
mixing with water) would have been used. I do recommend getting the most 
thick milk out of the almonds by kneading the straining cloth once the flow 
of milk out of the cloth has slowed. Make sure that the edges are securely 
gathered before doing this. You can use the aftermilk in a thinner pottage, 
or in one that does not depend so much on the almond milk.

In case there's some ambiguity in your recipe, these recipes tend to call 
for two strainings: one to get the undissolved solids out of the almond 
milk, and one to drain the whey out of the curdled almond milk. Some 
recipes say that you begin the second straining with the cloth held out, 
rubbing it underneath with a ladle or spoon, before gathering the corners 
up to let it hang.

Finally, I'd like to address two points from follow-up posts. I've only 
made almond milk with a blender, and I always strain it; it would be grainy 
and gritty otherwise. (If any modern recipes for cream/butter of almonds 
call for unstrained milk, I think that is a mistake.) And the process of 
blanching almonds includes removal of the skins; it seems confusing to call 
skinning the almonds a separate step.

-- 
Henry of Maldon/Alex Clark