Cooking
In Zimbabwe, most people have a rural home and usually rear their own cows, sheep, goats and chickens. So to a large extent people have easy access to raw milk and fresh eggs. Every morning, the cows are milked, and the milk is used to make tea. The excess milk will be placed in a clay pot where it will curdle overnight. Usually curdled milk is served with sadza; I eat it with rice as well. In an urban setting, raw milk is hard to come by, but the shops have pre-packed curdled milk you can buy.
Here in Bermuda and in many other Western places, you can not find curdled milk or raw milk to make your own. Pasteurised milk does not curdle; it just starts smelling really bad after taking it out of the fridge. So most Zimbabweans I know end up mixing milk, sour cream and buttermilk. I have also heard of mixing milk with cottage cheese and yoghurt. It looks similar to what you would eat in Zimbabwe but it does not taste the same.
Earlier this week I found out that in France they have curdled milk and they call it “lait caille”, and I found a recipe for making your own curdled milk in the absence of raw milk. The recipes are in French, but I figured it out. Here is what you will need
Ingredients
2 cups powdered milk
2 cups warm water
2 cups hot water
3 tbsp organic yogurt
Method
Using a plastic tub that has a lid, add 2 cups of powdered milk. Add the warm water first and stir and then add the hot water.
Add three tablespoons of yoghurt and stir.
Close the tub and cover it in a cloth, and place it in a warm place. Bermuda is really hot right now, so one was enough. If you live in cooler places, you may want to double the cloth; the heat generated will help with the fermentation process. I left mine covered for 24 hours. The longer the time for fermentation, the sharper the taste will be.
This is what the curdled milk looked like after 24 hours of fermentation. If you do not like the whey( the watery stuff or mutuvi in Shona) you can strain it with a cheese cloth. I like it so I do not strain it.
Serve with sadza or rice, or just eat it by itself as a dessert. You can sprinkle some sugar if you want to. It tastes like Lacto made by Dairibord in Zimbabwe.
