There is a long-standing cultural tradition of using yogurt and kefir as a base for cooling, healthy salads and sauces. From Greek tzatziki to Indian raita, dairy ferments are combined with many ingredients to make delicious side dishes and condiments. The recipes in this chapter might just prime your creative juices and nudge your dairy ferment fun in a whole new direction!
Makes 4 cups
If you love Indian food like I do, then you are familiar with creamy, refreshing raita. No Indian meal, in my opinion, is complete without a bowl of this tangy, cooling sauce flecked with bits of cucumber and spice.
Ingredients
Steps
Makes 8 cups
This recipe has a south-of-the-border kick and works great with hearty Mexican-type dishes like mole and enchiladas. It’s also perfect as a side dish for grilled steaks and barbecue of any kind. If you haven’t used jicama before, it’s a versatile root vegetable with a lovely, tender crunch and mild sweetness. It has a very tough outer skin that needs to be peeled off completely with a knife. You can substitute ground cumin for cumin seed (use about half as much), but the flavor won’t be nearly as pleasing. Once you try freshly toasted cumin seed, you might never want to go back to the ground stuff!
Ingredients
Steps
Makes 5 cups
It’s worth seeking out the amazing Ethiopian spice mix called berbere (see the sidebar for more on exotic spice blends). The mixture varies but often contains coriander, nutmeg, paprika, fenugreek, allspice, clove, black pepper, and cumin. Think of it as East Africa’s curry or chili powder. I love it in many dishes — including those that aren’t authentically Ethiopian. If you don’t have a local source, it’s easy to find online. I get mine from the Teeny Tiny Spice Company.
Ingredients
Steps
Makes 5 cups
Most of us think of bananas only as sweet fruits that must be yellow and speckled with brown spots before they are ready to eat. In this recipe, we use unripe bananas for their wonderful texture and slight sweetness to create a sauce that is wonderful on top of brown basmati saffron rice, black beans, and other hearty, starchy dishes. If you have a hard time finding shredded unsweetened coconut, you might have to crack open a whole one. That’s not an easy process, but the freshly harvested flesh is worth it.
Ingredients
Steps
Makes 3 cups
This Greek classic has been introduced to most Americans through the gyro sandwich. Homemade tsatziki is great on roast beef sandwiches, day-after-Thanksgiving turkey sandwiches, portobello burgers, and, of course, lamb and beef gyros! My first Greek recipes came from my mom’s cookbook, published in 1950, called Can the Greeks Cook! It’s still a great resource, and you can find used copies online.
Ingredients
Steps
Combine the yogurt, cucumber, garlic, oil, vinegar, and salt in a medium bowl. Mix well. Cover and refrigerate. It will keep for about 1 week in the refrigerator.
Makes 4–5 cups
I was introduced to baba ghanoush by some wonderful foodie neighbors who lived near us in Washington, D.C. I already knew and loved hummus, but baba ghanoush, from Lebanon and Syria, is even creamier and more savory. Adding some drained yogurt or kefir adds another layer of flavor, tang, and richness.
There’s nothing “light” about baba ghanoush — drizzles and swirls of olive oil are part of its charm and deliciousness. Feel free to adjust the seasoning amounts to your taste.
Ingredients
Steps
Makes 2 cups
Sure, you can make onion dip from scratch by sautéing fresh onions and shallots, but it will never taste like the guilty pleasure dip made from a packet of powdered French onion soup mix. I admit to being so desperate for that not-so-naturally flavored dip that I’ve grabbed whatever powdered and dried spice seemed like a good fit and mixed it in with some sour cream — usually not even waiting for the flavors to meld. When you want it, you want it! This recipe is a nice balance between the honest-to-goodness fresh onion version and the MSG-laced packet. In this recipe, miso’s umami power creates the familiar savory flavor, but you can substitute soy or tamari sauce or even a bouillon cube. It’s a very flexible recipe — as long as you have dried minced onions and a few other spices, you can likely make an onion dip that will satisfy everyone.
Ingredients
Steps
Makes 2 cups
The bottle gourd, also known as calabash, is often picked when young and used in Middle Eastern cooking as a fresh green squash. This recipe comes straight from Pakistan courtesy of the wife of my yogurt-making friend Mujtaba Safdar. You can find simpler Western versions of this recipe online, but none will duplicate the complexity and nuances of this one. This recipe calls for chaat masala — a wonderful Pakistani spice blend — and some fresh or dried curry leaves (no, these are not the same as curry powder). You can find these at many Asian markets, or online. If you can’t find young bottle gourds, use chayote squash instead. If you can’t find curry leaves, omit them — there is no good substitute.
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Steps
Mujtaba Safdar grew up where yogurt, known there as dahi, was born and nurtured into its present form. During his childhood in Rawalpindi, which is near Islamabad, Pakistan, Mujtaba developed a passion for animals as well as the knowledge of how to make dahi. His father kept the family’s water buffalo at a nearby farm and brought the rich milk home, where it was made into fresh, traditional yogurt. “That love for yogurt and cheese greatly enriched my aspiration to have a dairy business of some sort when I first went to the United States and tasted different kinds of yogurt,” Mujtaba says. “So, after almost a decade, I left the U.S. thinking about starting a business back home in Pakistan.”
Even though yogurt has been made in his part of the world for thousands of years, Mujtaba was inspired by the flavor and texture of some of the yogurt he tasted in the United States — particularly drained, or Greek, yogurt. He set about his business with a desire to bring that style of yogurt to Pakistani consumers. But, as he says, “passion itself does not make one consistent. Consistency with patience is what is required to perfect one’s craft.”
Finding enough high-quality milk was the hardest part of the business, and it still is. When he first started his company, it took Mujtaba two years to find the right milk, and he is still struggling to find enough quality milk, while at the same time he is working to perfect his craft. “Market dynamics,” he says, “are changing rapidly in my country.” While an encouraging organic movement has engulfed the dairy industry, the demand for organic milk has driven up the cost. For Mujtaba, who makes a drained yogurt with up to half the yield of thinner yogurt, this results in a bottom-line price that is beyond what most customers are accustomed to.
Although Pakistan is still one of the world’s major producers of water buffalo milk, second only to India, added costs have meant that cow dairies have now become more common. The cow’s milk is less expensive, though still quite costly, but it does offer Mujtaba the opportunity to make cream-top yogurt — a unique product in the region. Another unique factor for his products is the addition of probiotic strains of bacteria and the absence of any added sugar, neither of which he says any of his competitors are doing. He plans on adding other varieties, including some flavored with the seasonings of traditional Pakistani dips such as lauki (bottle gourd) dip (above).
As is the case for other small producers around the world, challenges abound. You can follow Mujtaba’s efforts and Orban Creamery (orban means “urban”) on Facebook and Instagram.
Makes about 1 cup
The classic green goddess dressing lends itself beautifully to a yogurt revision. The original contains a variety of leafy green herbs, sour cream, and anchovies. For this recipe, I use drained yogurt instead of sour cream and miso and nutritional yeast instead of anchovies to make it vegetarian. Feel free to use anchovies, however, if you prefer. For a dip, drain the yogurt longer or use the yogurt fromage blanc recipe.
Ingredients
Steps
Combine the yogurt, mayonnaise, oil, parsley, tarragon, chives, miso, nutritional yeast, lemon juice, and salt and pepper to taste in a food processor or blender and blend until smooth. If the dressing is too thick, add more lemon juice and oil to thin. The dressing can be used fresh, but it is better after being chilled in the refrigerator for a few hours. It will keep for 1 to 2 weeks in the refrigerator.
Makes 2 cups
Eaten as a dip with fries, pizza, fried chicken, and any number of other dishes — such as battered and pan-fried Quick ’n’ Squeaky Curds, shown above — ranch dressing is ubiquitous here in the States. I don’t know how this happened, but it shows the flavor appeal of blending a dairy ferment (buttermilk) with herbs and spices. Here, I use yogurt or kefir in place of buttermilk. Many recipes use dried spices, but I like the flavor of fresh. Feel free to use either; both will give you that classic bottled-ranch flavor.
Ingredients
Steps
Combine the mayonnaise, sour cream, yogurt, lemon juice, garlic, onion, chives, dill, parsley, mustard, and salt and pepper to taste in a food processor or blender and blend until smooth. If the dressing is too thick, add more lemon juice to thin. The dressing can be used fresh, but it is better after being chilled for a few hours. It will keep for 1 to 2 weeks in the refrigerator.
Makes 2 cups
When most Americans use the word curry, we are referring to the spice mixture that we associate with Indian food. As with many dishes that Westerners think of as ethnic, however, curry powder is definitely not Indian, but rather a British invention, albeit inspired by the cuisine of India. It is, no matter its provenance, definitely wonderful! For a milder version, omit the cayenne pepper. I find that curry blends bring out sweetness in foods, so I prefer mine with quite a bit of hot pepper.
Ingredients
Steps
Combine the sour cream, garlic, curry powder, lemon juice, coriander, salt, turmeric, and cayenne in a medium bowl and mix well. Taste, and add more salt or cayenne, if you like. Just before serving, top with cilantro. This dip can be made ahead and refrigerated for up to 1 week.
Makes 1 cup
My favorite dressing is always simple olive oil and vinegar. Growing up, I had never heard of balsamic vinegar, but thankfully it’s now easy to find — albeit not always of the best quality. In this recipe I replace a bit of the oil with yogurt for a dramatically different result. You can add nutritional yeast, one of my favorite salad ingredients, for thickness, umami, and nutritional benefit.
Ingredients
Steps
Combine the oil, vinegar, yogurt, garlic, pepper, and nutritional yeast, if using, in a medium bowl and whisk well. Use fresh or chilled. The dressing will keep for 1 to 2 weeks in the refrigerator.