The best-tasting, most useful dairy product may be cheese, which is why there’s a whole section on cooking with it here. But almost all dairy products have great value, and dairy is an important part of most vegetarians’ diets. It still pays to remember that, like all animal products, cheese, butter, and even yogurt are treats. Savor them, and don’t take them for granted.
If you can’t tolerate dairy, or if you’re a vegan, you still have plenty of options for these recipes, but you shouldn’t expect to duplicate the richness of whole milk, cream, or butter. See “Vegan Substitutions” (page 15) to get started.
A few words about storing dairy products: Refrigerate them in their original containers or in clean glass, ideally at 40°F or a little colder. Pour off what you need, then immediately return the rest to the fridge. Never put unused milk or cream back in the carton or jug; it’s likely to spoil faster. When stored properly, a dairy product should stay good for a couple of days after its “sell-by” date. You can freeze unsalted butter for a month or so (and salted butter somewhat longer) without noticeably affecting its flavor, but don’t freeze milk or cream.
The vast majority of milk produced worldwide is cow’s milk. You can find goat’s milk more easily now, but it has a very distinctive flavor not appropriate for every dish. If you have a way to buy milk from a local dairy, that’s your best bet. Failing that, locally produced organic milk is the way to go (When people ask me “What if I can only find local or organic?”. . . it’s a tough question, since much organic milk is from reconstituted powder shipped from abroad. I prefer principled local, which is not hard to determine but can be difficult to find.) Nonhomogenized (the milk and cream can still separate) is great if you can find it.
Whole (3.25 percent fat), reduced-fat (2 percent fat); low-fat (1 percent fat); fat-free, skim, or nonfat (no fat): Unless otherwise noted, you can use reduced-fat, low-fat (but not fat-free), or whole milk in the recipes in this book, though I now use only whole milk or nondairy milk.
Short for “ultra-high-temperature milk,” this is the unrefrigerated stuff you see in aseptic (sterilized and vacuum-sealed) boxes on supermarket shelves. UHT milk keeps for at least three months after packaging and is always dated. I always have some in the pantry for emergencies; it has a distinctive flavor that you can get used to and even like.
This tangy, thick, and sometimes lumpy liquid isn’t at all what it used to be, which was the liquid that remained after churning butter. Now it’s made from milk of any fat content, cultured with lactic acid–producing bacteria. It’s more like thin yogurt than anything else, though the flavor is slightly different. It is usually labeled “cultured buttermilk” or “cultured low-fat buttermilk.” Use it for baking, flavoring mashed potatoes, or making cold sauces, dips, and dressings.
It’s easy to “sour” regular milk to quickly produce a substitute: Bring any volume of milk to room temperature (microwave it 10 seconds at a time to do this quickly), then stir in 1 tablespoon white vinegar or lemon juice per cup. Let the mixture sit until clabbered — thick and lumpy — about 10 minutes.
There are all sorts of labels for cream, but mostly the kind you want is heavy (not “whipping”) cream, without any additives or emulsifiers, and not ultra-pasteurized (this takes longer to whip and has a distinctive, definitely cooked, flavor). The fat content of whipping cream ranges from 30 percent to 36 percent; heavy cream is 36 percent fat or more. See page 701 for more information about the stages of whipping cream.
Just like the name implies, this is half milk and half cream, with a fat content that ranges from 10.5 to 18 percent. It’s nice in dishes when you don’t need the richness of heavy cream, and it’s certainly easy enough to blend your own.
Sour cream is made much like yogurt, but starts with heavy cream and a little milk. It’s cultured by adding lactic acid bacteria to make it thick and produce its characteristic tangy flavor. Sour cream can be tricky to cook with because it can curdle — though not as quickly as yogurt — so add it to other ingredients over very low heat, and incorporate it a little at a time. I don’t recommend using reduced-fat sour cream.
Similar to sour cream except made entirely of cream. It’s less sour than sour cream, and a little thinner, but rich and a decadent addition to many recipes.
Crème fraîche is easier to find these days, but can be expensive. Note that you can easily make your own: Put 1 cup cream in a small glass bowl and stir in 2 tablespoons buttermilk or yogurt. Cover and let sit at room temperature until thickened, anywhere from 12 to 24 hours. Cover tightly, refrigerate, and use within a week or so.
Cultured milk, made with different bacteria from buttermilk and sour cream, which produce its unique flavor and texture. Look for “live, active cultures” (or similar terminology) on the label and avoid any with gelatins, gums, or stabilizers. Yogurt is available in whole, low-fat, and nonfat versions, as well as yogurt products like kefir (a cultured milk drink), labneh (yogurt cheese), and the now ubiquitous Greek (strained) yogurt (which you can make yourself; see page 552).
Americans are coming around to unflavored yogurt, but you can still find all sorts of crazy flavors, some with more sugar than ice cream. So why bother? Just flavor yogurt yourself (see page 552) or make your own from scratch.
You can use yogurt in sweet and savory dishes. If you’re not adding it to a batter, warm it gently and incorporate it a little at a time, or it will curdle. In recipes, whole-milk yogurt always gives the richest results.