Armenian Yogurt

Yogurt is one of those foods that seems epically scary for really no reason at all - I guess I always just assumed it would be hard to make? In actuality,  it's ridiculously easy to make yogurt and so even the most inept of chefs (cough cough) feel pretty much like a pro. The key to a delicious yogurt is, no surprise, the starter. I have even heard rumors of some mystical munchery in San Francisco where they feature a 2,000 year old line of yogurt....
I guess I personally don't really know where to recommend getting a yogurt starter.  But if anyone happens to offer one to you, 'jump on it!' I say. That's what happened to me at least - while at a delicious Armenian feast the other day (omg so good = bell pepper and mint salad, armenian cheese, sour plums, zaxtar bread, crispy bread rice and herby stew!), my host said "You should take some of my dad's sour yogurt and make your own batch." How could I say no? I couldn't in fact, and a few days later, I found myself in the kitchen with a friend, a 1/2 gallon of milk, and yogurt on the brain.

So how exactly do you go about making your own...?

1) I started with 1/2 gallon of 2% milk

2) I brought it to a boil, slowly, while stirring pretty regularly

3) Boil for no more than 5 minutes, stirring constantly

(SIDENOTE: if you keep taking the forming milk skin layer and stack it on a plate, you will end up with a creamy, buttery, basic cheese that is ridiculously tasty)

4) I let the milk cool for about 20 minutes, until I could put my pinky finger in it and it felt like a warm bath (so around 100 degrees)

5) As part of my prep, I had taken the yogurt out of the fridge, let it warm up a bit, and spread 2 spoonfuls all around the bottom of a large ceramic bowl

Day 1 Yogurt

6) Pour the warm milk into the bowl

7) Cover with a cloth or perforated tin-foil

8) Let it sit overnight at room temperature (stick it in the oven to preserve warmth if you think the house will chill down a bit that night)

9) And then stick it in the fridge to settle for a day or two

NOTE: Do Not Mix at any time after pouring. After 12 hours, you can separate out some of the yogurt (for friend-distribution, changing containers, or the like), but it will stop souring. If you want your yogurt as sour as the original, be sure and let it sit for 2-3 days straight without disturbing. Also, the original pour should be in ceramic if you want to limit random lumps.

Day 3 Yogurt

And Voila! Delicious sour yogurt! So easy, so tasty and really quite healthy. People keep asking me what the difference is between Armenian yogurt and other yogurts, but unfortunately I am no yogurt expert. It's really sour and tangy, so that would be my first guess. And I hear that Armenians are the traditional transporters of yogurt to North America. Also, I got it from an Armenian...=does that count?

"As one of Armenian ancestry, I had heard stories of the difficulty in bringing in, through U.S. customs, the bacterial culture that is needed to make yogurt. As immigrants were processed at Ellis Island, the INS officers would look at the little jars of yogurt starter carried by the immigrants. they would have most certainly opened the jars and smelled the sour, acrid odor of the bacterial culture. It was of course immediately thrown into the trash. In correspondence to the old country, one Armenian immigrant bemoaned the fact that they could neither buy or make this diet staple they had enjoyed for centuries. An enterprising woman in Turkish-Armenia, who was shortly leaving for America, came up with a solution to the problem. She took clean white handkerchiefs and dipped them into a large bowl of yogurt and then hung them out to dry. She then carefully folded them with her other linen and packed them in her trunk. After she got to the U.S. she had no difficulty in going through customs with clean white hankies. Once settled, she dipped these hankies in warm milk and thus freed the bacteria to culture and make yogurt." - via www.gutsygourmet.net
 
Or to learn from the real professionals....



Please note: The translation is incorrect. The first child says "My favorite food is Tolma"