Conference turris::cooks

re: .0

>    How do you MAKE sourcream?
>    
>    I KNOW, you don't normally make sourcream, you just go down to the
>    store and get some, however...
>    
>    I live in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, and sourcream is not known down 
>    here, so, no store to go to!
    
The Joy of Cooking often comes through when you have to make something
totally from scratch. :-)  Here's what they say about sour cream:

    Place in a quart glass jar:

	1 cup pasteurized 20% or light cream

    The cream must be at least this heavy and may be
    heavier-- the heavier the better for the texture of the
    end product.  Add:

	5 teaspoons cultured buttermilk

    The commercial type which is 1% acid and has carefully
    controlled bacteria is suggested rather than the less
    acid and less controlled homemade buttermilk.  Cover the
    jar and shake these ingredients vigorously.  Stir in:

	1 cup pasteurized 20% or light cream

    Cover the jar and allow this mixture to stand at 75 to
    80 degrees (Fahrenheit) for 24 hours.  The sour cream
    may then be used at once, although storage under
    refrigeration for another 24 hours makes a finer
    product.  It does not freeze well.  Add sour cream at
    the end of cooking processes over low heat and stir
    gently to avoid curdling.  Do not overstir.

-Hal

    Thank you,
    
    I'll try that. Buttermilk is a bit hard to come by, but I guess Yogurt
    might work in its place.
    
    Rolf

re: .2
    
>    I'll try that. Buttermilk is a bit hard to come by, but I guess Yogurt
>    might work in its place.
    
I'd be surprised if there isn't directions for making buttermilk in 
Joy of Cooking.  Let me know if you want me to look that up for you.

-Hal

re: .3

>I'd be surprised if there isn't directions for making buttermilk in 
>Joy of Cooking.  Let me know if you want me to look that up for you.

Hmmm, unfortunately the Joy of Cooking instructions for making buttermilk
are recursive...they require cultured buttermilk. :-(  They do mention,
though, that originally buttermilk was just the liquid left over after
making butter, so you might try that.

The above perturbed me, so I got out Harold McGee's "On Food and Cooking".
He says that sour cream can be made either by using a buttermilk starter
for the culture, or by adding vinegar to the cream and letting the mixture
stand until it curdles.  He doesn't say how much vinegar, though.  Might
be worth an experiment or two.

As for using yogurt, I'm not sure if it would work.  Yogurt is apparently
made via different bacteria than buttermilk.  Might be worth a try,
though.  For the microbiologically inclined, yogurt is fermented using
lactobacillus bulgaricus and streptococcus thermophilus, while buttermilk
is fermented using either or both of leuconostoc citrovorum and/or
streptococcus lactis (it wasn't clear to me whether they are used together
or as substitutes for each other).

-Hal

    Well, you can make soured milk as a buttermilk substitute by adding a
    big of vinegar or lemon juice to milk and letting it sit, but it is
    only good as an ingredient for something else, not as buttermilk (for
    the few peoplke who will actually drink buttermilk).  What you get is
    curdled milk.  So I suppose you could do this to cream and get curdled
    cream, but I don't think you'd find it made a good sour cream
    substitutde if you were planning on using it as a topping for
    something.  Still, you could try it, if you can't get sour cream.
    
    /Charlotte

    Hi Charlotte!
    
    Nice to run into you in this conference!
    
    The idea is to "produce" sour-cream (since we cannot get it here in PY.
    From previous info in this topic you need buttermilk to start the
    process of curdling CREAM (we can get neutral 25% cream of milk).
    
    So, I guess the process would be:
    
    1 - produce curdled milk, using the vinager or lemon method.
    
    2 - add this product to the cream
    
    3 - wait and see (and taste!)
    
    Greetings
    
    Rolf

    A very long time ago - some odd 35 years ago - my father made sourcream
    and white chease or quark at home. I believe this is the way it was done
    in the old times.

    What my father did was like this:

    He bought from the milk-man, that used to come with his horse-driven cart,
    one jug of milk (mon-pasteurized milk). Those jugs were about 10 liters,
    metal jug.

    I think the milk was not from the day, but perhaps a day old (in those
    days in Argentina, the milkman would milk his cows very early in the 
    morning, fill the jugs, put them on the cart and go deliver).

    The milk was left in the jug, that was put to rest, open, with just a 
    fine cloth covering the mouth of the jug. The milk became acid - from the
    bacteria that were on the air. By the second day, the cream part of the
    milk had risen to the surface and was skimed with a large spoon. I think
    that jug gave about 1 liter sourcream.

    The skimmed milk was left standing, it curdled, and after a few days, the
    quark and whey were separated by straining thru a very fine cloth.

    This was done by end of the winter, early spring, and - of course - no
    refrigeration was available nor used.

    I think some description, equivalent to this was included in one of the 
    notes answering my request for a recipe for knodeln or marillen-knodeln.

    Regards,

    Juan-Carlos Kiel
    DEC Israel

    The trick there is that pasteurized milk cannot sour (It can spoil but
    that's different), non pasteurized milk can sour.
    
    ed

    When my mother encountered a recipe that needed sour cream, and she
    didn't have it, she just added vinegar to sweet cream, and used that.
    
    							Ann B.

    Yogurt makes an acceptable substitute for sour cream.  The flavor will
    be a bit different, but depending on what else is in the recipe it
    might not even be noticed.
    
    Another substitute for sour cream is to blend cottage cheese with a
    little milk until you get the right consistency.

    
    I've drained PLAIN yogurt - line a funnel/collander with cheesecloth/
    coffee filter - and use it as a [better] substitute to sour cream.
    Stop draining when you get desired thickness.
    
    If you it too long, it becomes yogurt cheese, another very versatile
    product! eg stir some honey in it, and presto you have a great dip
    for fruit! I use this in strawberry romanov often, instead of sour
    cream.