Kefir

[Sakkarin Profile]

It looks like a disease

On the bright side, at least now I know what to look for in Tesco!

[Renée Profile]

I was wondering earlier this morning, if eastern European people are healthier, because these products seem to be part of their daily diet.

[Gillthepainter Profile Website]

Could be, Renee.
I'm tempted to revisit the kefir now.

Sakkarin, it is most odd to look at, like a silicon gel. And rather creepy the way it multiplies twice-fold over night.

[Uschi Profile]

These things certainly keep you healthy, but my guess is that they get older, because they didn't have convenience food until recently.

If they ever were healthier in the first place.

[Renée Profile]

From what I further went on to read, we should be eating the foods of our ancestors, so for me that would be potatoes, vegetables, dairy, butter, lard for frying (!), lamb beef, chicken and fish. Makes you wonder, doesn't it?

For the past week, I haven't been making my early morning smoothies, which contain lots of healthy stuff and have been having toasted fruit bread with spread and marmalade on, using butter sometimes and more oil in cooking and I have been feeling a lot better and my system is working well. It's not doing my weight much good, though.

[Uschi Profile]

I think you can eat whatever food you like within reason and especially if it is home cooked and not full of convenience food stuff.

[Renée Profile]

I well remember the 80s, Uschi! It was probably when I brewed Kombucha and read Leslie Kenton's books ... raw food and all that! It wasn't for me though, especially having a family to cook for at the time. I was probably sprouting seeds at that time, which I might well do again.

[Uschi Profile]

With my farm-bred mother and my father's delicate digestive system there was little chance of joining the raw food movement. Mind you, I would not have wanted to.

It was more about organic food and eating wild herbs and stuff. The older generation was horrified, because during and after the war many of them had been reduced to eating grass to survive.

My mother (farmer's daughter) had never been that hungry, and she even taught me foraging for rowan berries, sorrel and other things.

She knew how to make Sauerkraut, but our cellar wasn't cool enough and the butcher had a big vat of good fresh Sauerkraut, so we didn't try that out.

[Linnet Profile]

After reading this, I noticed today that my local (medium-sized) Sainsburys has Kefir among the chilled Polish products, and at £1.40 for a litre bottle. Not tried it yet!

[Renée Profile]

Thanks Linnet. I'll watch out for it when I go next time.

Uschi, that's such a sad story about people having to eat grass to survive. We have to be thankful that we have an abundance of food these days.

[Sakkarin Profile]

Well, thanks to Linnet's post I found Polish "Kefir drink" in Tesco, so I tried it, but they also had Polish strawberry buttermilk for £1.25 for "1 kg".

The buttermilk was very thick and creamy. Thumbs up there.

The kefir was odd. It was lumpy, so I put the lid back on to shake it up, but unfortunately not tight enough, so I now have kefir splatter on my sideboard

Bottom line? It tastes sort of what I imagine milk that's been soured with lemon to make paneer would taste like, if you eat the whole lot including the curds and the whey. And maybe add gelatin to give it the glueyness. Or maybe just sour milk with an extra slug of lemon juice.

I also thought: "Hey, I've just BOUGHT sour milk, when I have 5 pints of fresh milk in the fridge...".

However I can see that if you like that sourness, it could grow on you.

[Linnet Profile]

Thanks, Sakkarin, think that's a miss with kefir for me then!

[Renée Profile]

Well, added to smoothies, I wouldn't notice the taste!

[Sakkarin Profile]

Could have sworn I'd already posted this, but no sign of it!

Anyway, I was about to throw away the remaining kefir after a quick sniff, but happened to have about 100g of plump strawberries left over in the fridge, so I added a tablespoon of icing sugar, and chicked it all in the blender. A very refreshing yoghurty drink! Afterwards it struck me that I could have added in one of the ripe bananas I had on the side, too, and it would have been even nicer. Very slight ammoniaish smell to the drink, but I ignored it.

[Sakkarin Profile]

Tried the 1 litre cartons of Polish plain buttermilk in Tesco yesterday, only £1.

250ml buttermilk: 25p
Half a small banana: 4.5p
4 plump strawberries: 35p
2 tsp icing sugar: 0.5p

Equals one huge glass of the fabbest strawberry smoothie ever for 65p, better than the aforementioned pre-made strawberry one and the kefir concoction.

Anything else that can be done with buttermilk?

[Binky Profile]

Dr Michael Mosley talking on Radio 4 about kefir (it's a 5 minute clip)

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p05388dz

[jeral Profile]

People often recommend buttermilk muffins and scones,e.g.
http://allrecipes.co.uk/recipe/30777/bu ... ffins.aspx
https://smittenkitchen.com/2013/03/my-f ... -biscuits/

If you Google "buttermilk soup" lots of different recipes come up.

I can't eat buttermilk, but a lot do enthuse about it

[Binky Profile]

Buttermilk is in a lot of cornbread recipes. This so one chosen at random.

http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/paul ... pe-1921711

[Renée Profile]

Thank you for the Dr Michael Mosley link, Binky. I bought his book from Amazon last week.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/d/cka/Clever-G ... 147&sr=1-1

I used make Delia's scones, which contained buttermilk. They were very light.

[Stokey Sue Profile]

Anything else that can be done with buttermilk?

Southern fried chicken

Lots of recipes online, two schools of thought
1. Marinate the chicken in buttermilk and flavourings, then roll in flour and fry (which I think I'd go for)
2. make a batter with the butter milk, flour and flavourings and dip the chicken in it

Pioneer Woman's version
http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/ree-drummond/fried-chicken-2170718

If you don't want to fry, Nigella's buttermilk roast chicken might be interesting
http://www.foodnetwork.co.uk/recipes/buttermilk-roast-chicken.html

For veggies. buttermilk is used in one of my favourite curries avial, which is meant to have a lot of liquid, much of it buttermilk
Random recipe that I haven't tried
http://www.fromammawithlove.com/recipe-aviyal.html