Buttermilk

[Albert]

RW and UW, and guys who might know rather than just guess.
I am in Ukraine now, and can't find buttermilk that I need for a recipe. Even the gals here who speak pretty good English, can't find or even understand what this product is.

So what product name, in Ukrainian and Russian, should we
be looking for?

Also state if there really is no equivalent, but that something
else could be a subsitute.  This could be the reverse of  the Ukrainian cheesse thing I was looking for earlier in USA (and asked here about) and could never find such.

Thanks

[ibpap]

Try kefir.

I tasted some in St. Pete's that this gal had bought. Tasted like buttermilk to me. Maybe just not as thick.

-pete

[wendaaaal]

Kefir will definately work!

Bought some by mistake last time. Tastes just like buttermilk to me...Wendell in Austin...

[jb]

Kefir is very close, it's actually the culture very close to yogurt used to cook down to something that looks like cottage cheese.  I hadn't thought to use it for cooking, but I'm sure it would make good pancakes or biscuits.

[Vaughn]

Anybody know if there's a Russian/Ukrainian equivalent of cream cheese? My visiting MIL is LOVIN' it on her toast every morning, but never had experienced it before...

[Turboguy]

Maybe we can have a topic in the married section discussing diets after we get them all hooked on cream cheese, pizza, Ben and Jerrys, etc. 

[jb]

Vaughn,

Not that I know of.  My wife had never tasted cream cheese before she arrived in the States.  We now keep a goodly supply of Philly Cream Cheese in the frig at all times, it's her favorite breakfast food.  I told her that I'd only ever used it for holiday dishes at Christmas and for baking super fatning snacks for people whose arteries I wanted to clog.  She just spreads it on toast, which is not, I think, what the people who make intended, I believe they had a bagel and salted salmon in mind.

[Vaughn]

jb wrote:

for people whose arteries I wanted to clog.

Now that would make an entertaining episode
on Forensic Files. My wife likes the Pillsbury biscuits
that come rolled up in a tube - and works cream cheese
into the center before baking them. I'm putting on a few
pounds over this way. We did the bagels and lox in NY,
but it's tough to find a decent bagel here.

Elvira occasionally has me pick up an extra gallon
of milk on my way home, then lets it sit out on the
counter for 24 hours. The next day, I find a large
mixing bowl full of what looks like thin cottage
cheese, and it tastes just awful - it's about the only
thing she concocts that I cannot deal with. It's called
Okroshka. My Oxford R-E dictionary defines it as "a
hodge-podge" or "jumble" which might explain those involuntary contractions in my stomach; otherwise,
I've never eaten so well.

Turbo:

Maybe we can have a topic in the married section discussing diets after we get them all hooked on cream cheese, pizza, Ben and Jerrys, etc.  

Could be fun. I know one fellow's wife in Florida
who loves her Saturday noon visit to Taco Bell. My own wife enjoys shrimp and our homemade cocktail sauce.

[jb]

Vaughn,

Does she have the special culture, or the fungus, needed to turn this bowl of milk into yorgurt?  It's called "molochnii gribok", I think.  Your wife will read this and understand it.

If she doesn't have this special fungus needed to produce the yorgurt I'm sure there's enough in my fridg to send you some.

[Vaughn]

We're fresh out, but I'll pass. She snuck some through customs after New Years, along with herbs, hoo-doo remedies, a large baggie of what appeared to be some
fine cannabis (but was not) and three - are you ready? Three huge salted FISH, wrapped in butcher paper.
How customs missed all this is beyond me, I guess a
flutter of the eyelashes works wonders. "Everyone coming to New York on Aerofolt does such" she says. If the Port Authority employed salmon-sniffing dogs they'd have a field day.

[ConnerVT]

If the Port Authority employed salmon-sniffing dogs they'd have a field day.

 

Salmon-sniffing cats would be much more effective. 

[tim 360]

MAKING CULTURED BUTTERMILK FROM SCRATCH

[list=1]

• Allow a cup of filtered fresh raw milk to sit covered at room temperature until it has clabbered (usually several days). [/*]
  
• Place 1/4 cup of the clabbered milk in a pint mason jar, add a cupof fresh milk (does not have to be raw at this point), cover, shake to mix, allow to sit at room temperature until clabbered. [/*]
  
• Repeat this transfer of sub-culturing several more times until the milk dependably clabbers in 24 hours.  Taste a small amount to confirm that it is tart, thickened, and has no off flavors. [/*]
  
• To then make a quart of buttermilk with this culture, add 6 ounces of  the buttermilk to a quart jar, fill with fresh milk, cover, shake to mix, allow to sit at room temperature until clabbered. [/*]
  
• Refrigerate.

[/list][/*]
[indent][/indent]
[indent][/indent]

[tim 360]

CULTURED VERSUS OLD FASHIONED BUTTERMILK:
* "Cultured buttermilk," commonly available in US supermarkets, is not the same as "old fashioned buttermilk," about which I get many questions.  The latter is the liquid which remains after churned butter is removed.  The two buttermilks bear few traits in common. See the following description of churning butter for the differences.

CHURNING BUTTER: 
In "olden times," farm families would let freshly milked milk sit for half a day and skim off the cream which had risen.  This cream would be set aside in a cool place, around 50-60 F.  Each milking's cream would be added until several gallons had accumulated.  In the meantime, naturally occurring bacteria in the cream would cause it to slightly sour.  This souring increases the efficiency of churning.  The accumulated, slightly sour, cream would be churned at the optimum temperature (approximately 58 F) such that the butter was firm enough to separate out, but soft enough to stick together into a mass.  The butter was removed, washed in very cold water to remove the remaining milk, and salt worked in to preserve it.  The remaining liquid after the butter was removed was called buttermilk.  I call it "old fashion buttermilk,"  which is slightly sour, has the consistency of  milk, but is slightly paler.  It has flakes of butter floating in it.  Commercial manufacturers sometimes add colored "butter flakes" to imitate the old fashioned buttermilk.  However, the two products are very different, cultured buttermilk being thick and tart, old fashioned being thin, and slightly acid, depending on how sour the cream got before it was churned.

[tim 360]

Albert,  it is all in the type of bacteria.  Have fun!YOGURT: Yogurt is produced by a mixed culture of two types of bacteria. Imbedded in particles of the protein casein, you will see chains of cocci or diplococci (Streptococcus thermophilus) and big rod-shaped bacilli (either Lactobacillus acidophilus or L. bulgaricus).   If you do a Gram stain, the bacteria will be Gram positive (purple) and the protein will be pink.  The illustrations at the top of the page are micrographs I took of a Gram stain of yogurt.  The purple rods are Lactobacillus, the purple spheres are Streptococcus.  The pink globs are casein, milk protein.
BUTTERMILK  is the fermentation of milk by a culture lactic acid-producing Streptococcus lactis  plus Leuconostoc citrovorum which converts lactic acid to aldehydes and ketones which gives it its flavor and aroma.

SOUR CREAM  is produced by the same bacteria as buttermilk, but the starting milk product is pasteurized light cream. Bacteria are less numerous than in buttermilk.

[ConnerVT]

Albert, listen to Tim.  He's from Vermont, and everyone knows that Vermonters know their milk! 

(I'm a transplant from NY.  Now, ask me about piva... )

[Turboguy]

Ukkk,  I think that may be more than I ever wanted to know.

[Elen]

accoding to process describing by Tom "old fashioned buttermilk" is PAHTA(ПАХТА) but not kefir

[tim 360]

Yeah!  Thats a long process.  Of course if you have the right bacteria laying around that will shorten the "clabbering" significantly.  Also,  a powdered buttermilk is made, with the proper bacteria and that shortens the fermenting process.  Or Aunt Jemima?

Conner,  I gotta run.  Time to milk the cows....by hand.  Nah! 

[Albert]

OK, thanks all for the info.  I will look at the Kefir as well as Pahta.