Yogurt Cheese

I made Yogurt Cheese the other day. It's a good substitute for sour cream and mayonnaise. If you have not tried yogurt cheese before, it tastes just like any ordinary plain yogurt but the texture is as thick as cream cheese. The unique sour taste makes a good combo with bread. You can add herbs, olive oil, salt and honey to enhance the taste.

My homemade yogurt. I added extra milk powder to ensure that the texture is thick.

I prepared a bowl and put a sieve on top. This will help to drain the whey from the yogurt

The clothe is placed on top of the sieve. I sanitized it by putting it in a pot of boiling water with a little bit of dishwasher soap for 10 minutes. Be sure to wash off the soap thoroughly and squeeze as dry as you can.

Put your yogurt on top of the clean cloth

Tie the cloth with a string and put everything in the fridge. I left it for about 5 hours.

Voila! Yogurt cheese fresh from the fridge.

Mix with salt and honey

Notice the texture of the yogurt cheese. Superbly easy to spread on the bread.

Yogurt cheese tastes great with cucumber! Put a couple of slices of it and top it up with smoked salmon with a dash of black pepper. Delish!

How to remove tumeric stains

If you are cooking with real fresh tumeric or tumeric powder, let me tell you something:-

Tumeric will stain your fingers, plates, bowls and cooking utensils. It's so darn stubborn that any amount of scrubbing will not remove it. Don't get your heart broken yet, there is a solution for this! You can use vinegar or baking soda to scrub those pesky yellow stains away. I personally tried it and it works!

My tumeric stained dish. It has been like this for almost 5 days despite washing it with soap many times.
You can imagine how stubborn the stain is by now.

My trusty Baking soda (if you don't have it, you can use vinegar).
Just sprinkle directly on the dish and use a damp green scour to scrub.

Ta-Da! Tumeric stains gone in 5 minutes.

Tried & tested: Yogurt Chicken Curry [mildly spicy]

Hi Folks,

I tried this recipe today, tweaked it and it was absolutely delicious! 100% success. Here's the revised recipe! Hope you will enjoy this healthy and tasty dish as much as I did with my family.



[Ingredients A: To blend]
3 cloves of garlic
1 medium size onion
1 tablespoon of coriander/chinese parsley
0.5 cm of young ginger
 
[Ingredients B: Mix together]
1 teaspoon turmeric powder
1 ½ teaspoons garam masala
1 teaspoon chili powder
2 teaspoons of curry powder


3 tablespoon of cooking oil
1 teaspoon of mixed indian spices (optional)
1 potato (cubed)
1 whole Chicken (cut into small pieces & coat it with a right amount of salt to taste)
1 ripe tomato (freeze it first, then take out the skin and puree it. You can use a blender but since I'm too lazy to take mine out from the cabinet, I used Kitchen King Pro and it did a fantastic job.)
1/2 cup of plain yogurt
1/2 teaspoon of sesame oil (optional)
1/2 cup water
Fine salt to taste

Step 1
Blend Ingredients A together as finely as possible. You can add a bit of water to give it a smoother blending process. (I used my trusty Jo!e Garlic twist crusher to do the job. ;) )

Step 2
Once you are happy with the texture, heat up the cooking oil (I use olive oil) and fry until fragrant. Pay special attention to the garlic. Once it is caramelized, then immediately thrown in Ingredients B.

Optional: you can also add the mixed indian spice to fry together. This will make your dish more aromatic.

Step 3
Add the potatoes & chicken. If it's too dry, add a little bit of water, just enough to simmer only.

Step 4
If you see that the chicken is cooked, add in the tomato and continue to simmer. Keep stirring to avoid it from burning.

Step 5
Poke though a piece of potato. You can turn off the fire if the potato is soft.  If you would not want to murder the good yogurt cultures, let it cool first and then you can mix the yogurt in last while adding salt to taste.

If you prefer to simmer the chicken with the yogurt, then add 1 teaspoon of cornstarch to avoid it from curdling.  

Step 6
Serve & enjoy