The CookingBites recipe challenge: Yoghurt

Morning Glory said:
I'm noticing we have fewer recipes submitted than usual at this stage. Not sure why. Is yoghurt seen as a non sexy ingredient? Not versatile enough? The way I see it, its a very versatile ingredient and apart from anything else can be used in many recipes to substitute cream for a lighter, tangier finish. I've got more ideas for recipes using yoghurt than I have time to make. In fact, I bought a whole book of recipes for yoghurt (as aforementioned). So shout if you want some ideas...

Well, I'm just trying to encourage you all. You are a creative lot so please bring on your recipes!
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Not at all, I love yoghurt and use it frequently.

But I've been having pretty serious fatigue and pain issues the past few months, so participating is hard for me. I have plenty of ideas, but lack the energy to realise those.

That's the thing with chronic illness, it comes in waves and there are times it's easier and times it's more difficult to handle.
 
TastyReuben said:
I did make one that I intended to submit - a roasted beet-and-yogurt salad, but I got so distracted making it that I deviated far too much from the instructions, and it turned out absolutely abysmal-looking. Tasted great, looked like (literal) crap.

I do have one more to go, it’s for a cake (I think we already have two), but this one is more of a savory cake, so I’m including it. I’ll probably make it this weekend.

I’ll be the first to say that I rarely use yogurt for anything other than eating as-is (and that’s not very often at that), so I like the choice of ingredient and even the couple of things I’ve made so far, I’ve liked (especially that cocktail!).

Any previous hesitation on my part to use it regularly probably comes down to my generation and my upbringing. When I was a small child, yogurt was unheard of where I lived, and then it seemed to burst onto the shelves out of nowhere, around the mid-70’s, and heavily marketed as a diet/healthy food, and I think I still see it that way, meaning that “diet/healthy” equals less tasty substitution that you eat to lose weight, not that you eat to enjoy. I’m sure, buried deep in my brain, I still have that notion in there.
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I've noticed that yoghurt is eaten very differently in the UK, at least where I lived it was considered a luxury and in some ways a novelty. My ex MIL thought my habit of eating yoghurt for breakfast was a strange kind of decadence.

That surprised me because yoghurt by all means is an 'old fashioned' , poor people food where I live. There are more elderly people eating it every day than young ones. Though recently it's made a comeback since granola became popular in instagram culture. Yoghurt has been a staple food here for the entire past century and I believe far beyond as well.

So maybe the UK has more in common with the US than mainland Europe in this regard? The other European countries I visited, Germany, France, Belgium and Greece all have yoghurt in some form as a staple food.
 
Windigo said:
I've noticed that yoghurt is eaten very differently in the UK, at least where I lived it was considered a luxury and in some ways a novelty.
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In the 60s, I don´t think yoghurt existed in Britain (although I might be mistaken). The first time I ever tried it was at a Summer Camp in the south of France, 1966.
A bit like olive oil. The only olive oil we ever had in the house was for putting in your ears.
 
karadekoolaid said:
In the 60s, I don´t think yoghurt existed in Britain (although I might be mistaken). The first time I ever tried it was at a Summer Camp in the south of France, 1966.
A bit like olive oil. The only olive oil we ever had in the house was for putting in your ears.
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With regards to olive oil, that was the same here. It was considered the inferior kind of fat you only used when necessary due to Catholic fasting rules. That was mostly because back then the sale of olive oil was not regulated yet here and it was mixed with low quality oils and usually gone rancid already.
It's indeed since the 90's that the use of olive oil became common here and it's quality improved.
 
karadekoolaid said:
In the 60s, I don´t think yoghurt existed in Britain (although I might be mistaken). The first time I ever tried it was at a Summer Camp in the south of France, 1966.
A bit like olive oil. The only olive oil we ever had in the house was for putting in your ears.
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I can't comment about the 70's, but by the very early 80's yoghurt featured in our diet almost everyday, particularly Greek strained natural yoghurt. My mother loved it over banana for breakfast, often served with honey. I just had the yoghurt and honey (can't do banana). It was always natural, unsweetened greek strained yoghurt. That was when I was at infants and middle school, well before my sister was born.

I do have very vague memories of my grandparents eating yoghurt when I lived with them. That would have been Ski yoghurt, their favourite and that wound have been the late 70's. But my grandfather was well off with a very job, senior management position in BT before it was privatised. Money wasn't an issue for him though my Grannie had a weekly allowance that all the food came out of.
 
karadekoolaid said:
That looks absolutely divine. I love egg curries and I think they´re very underrated.
Here´s a question.(because I despise decimated coconut; it´s a pale comparison to its fresh version).
Have you tried using fresh coconut? I´m talking about the brown coconuts you can find in the supermarkets; hard shell removed, coconut meat ground, grated or blitzed in a blender, stored in the freezer.
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I haven't. But in this recipe there is only one tbsp of desiccated coconut and its toasted. I expect it might make a bit of difference to the taste but I'm not likely to buy a whole coconut (should I be able to find one) for such a small amount. Desiccated coconut is simply dried coconut - just like we use dried spices or ground nuts, so I don't have a particular problem with it. The one I use has no additives at all.
 
SatNavSaysStraightOn said:
I can't comment about the 70's, but by the very early 80's yoghurt featured in our diet almost everyday, particularly Greek strained natural yoghurt.
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Greek yogurt, at least around here, became very popular with the Rise of the Millennials - before that, it was all the fruit-flavored/fruit on the bottom whipped yogurt, no one had ever heard of Greek yogurt.
 
Here’s a nice little snack:

Recipe - Slim Chutney Deviled Eggs

I mentioned in the recipe that I slightly modified these from the original recipe; it initially called for 3 TB reduced-fat mayonnaise, and I subbed in 2 TB whole milk plain Greek yogurt, and 1 TB regular mayonnaise, just to keep in the creaminess:

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I like using mango chutney (and curry powder) in egg salad, so I thought the chutney would be a nice variation for traditional deviled eggs. That little hint of sweetness is good, and it does change the texture a bit, rounding or smoothing it out a little.

Nice little tang from the yogurt, and definitely top these with the cashews…something I ordinarily wouldn’t do, but the crunch really enhanced it.

Mango Chutney Deviled Eggs

Mango Chutney Deviled Eggs


Mango Chutney Deviled Eggs

Mango Chutney Deviled Eggs


One more to go!
 
My last entry:

Recipe - One-Bowl Yogurt-Honey-Olive Oil Cake

You’ll notice there aren’t a lot of pictures of the finished product. That’s because cakes continue to mock me, so this one didn’t turn out 100% the way I wanted.

The bit that did turn out, though, was wonderful - lightly sweet, brightly citrusy, just a touch of savory from the fresh herbs (the recipe called for thyme, but my thyme hasn’t come back yet, so I used oregano).

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Pretty quick and easy to throw together. As you can see, I scaled it down to make a 6-inch cake, and everything was fine as far as amounts went, but when doing that, baking times go out the window, and you just have to sit there and babysit it, and I’m apparently a poor one at that.

I pulled it from the oven, felt the top, it was springy, gave it a toothpick poke, that came out clean, but I must have missed the center by just a hair, and the middle wasn’t just underbaked, it was raw. Still wet. Liquid.

Oh well. Story of my cake life, usually. At least this one, I know what I did wrong, and had I given it more time, it would have been fine.

As it happened, though, the thoroughly-baked bit was terrific - very airy and fluffy, no flour streaks, no dense bits. All it needed was more time.

One-Bowl Yogurt-Honey-Olive Oil Cake

One-Bowl Yogurt-Honey-Olive Oil Cake


One-Bowl Yogurt-Honey-Olive Oil Cake

One-Bowl Yogurt-Honey-Olive Oil Cake


So all I ask is, give the thing a fair shake - don’t judge it by its maker’s ineptitude. :laugh:
 
This curry is a perfect example of how the vegetarian Hindu cooks adapted to Mughlai cuisine. Supposedly this dish was created for the 9 courtiers of King Akbar, of the Mughlai dynasty. The recipe looks complicated, in that there are lots of ingredients and several steps; however, the onion/cashew paste can be prepared in advance and the vegetables cooked the day before. Actual cooking time is brief.
This is a spectacular, almost decadent dish to surprise your guests.
Looks to me like I subbed asparagus tips for green beans in this (2019) photo, but as I pointed out in the recipe itself, you can put in what you like, so long as there are 9 main ingredients.
Navratan Korma (9 Precious Jewels)
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Morning Glory said:
This one was too late for the pass:
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My mother has just informed me (boy, do I hate messenger) that she's off to bed, so the deadline hasn't yet passed, midnight not midday on Wednesday 20th.... so I'll include it.

If there are any more entries to add to the 17 we've had so far, there is about another 1½hr in which to add them.

I'll look at the existing entries and whilst I'll out walking today let my imagination wander over the culinary delights that the 6 members who have entered so far.

Thank you to everyone who has tried so far. Much appreciated.
 
Was 'midnight' an error in the top post on my part? Its always been a midday deadline in the past. The countdown clock was set wrongly in that case.
 
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