Buttermilk - not that simple
"Grandma's probiotic."
If you remember I told you how to make a really good crème fraïche substitute the other day by adding buttermilk to real cream. But it only took a little of the buttermilk even though I made a couple of batches. So now I have almost a full carton of buttermilk in the fridge and I'm not sure what to do with it. Well I knew I could use it to make scones - and I will, but what else? I started looking for recipes (and I will come to that) but first I got into the whole debate about what buttermilk actually is and what is better. The more I looked the more complicated it got. I began with this relatively simple statement that I found on one website but quoting another.
“'buttermilk' describes not one but two other dairy products. One is the old, soured milk most butter was made from before fridges – the milk for butter, if you will. The second is the cultured sour milk commercial dairies began to make from low-fat milk and lactic acid – no butter involved" L. V. Anderson
So I thought I understood - old versus new if you like. And if you're really keen you can always make your own butter, thus producing the 'real' buttermilk, and it's not that difficult if you have an electric mixer to do the hard labour of the beating of the milk. But I'm guessing most of us are not going to bother - we'll just buy some from the supermarket. Then I found that even the 'real' product from butter was not just one thing, but three.
"prior to the 20th century, buttermilk could refer to at least three different categories of beverage: regular old milk that had gone sour; the sour byproduct of churning sour milk or cream into butter; and the “sweet” byproduct of churning fresh milk or cream into butter." L. V. Anderson - Slate
As an aside - if you want a really good explanation of the history of buttermilk, you should read L. V Anderson's article. I found it late in the day and it cleared up a lot of my confusion. Interestingly in the process of his or her research he or she tried making the 'real' thing from fresh cream, not the soured cream and found the taste to be not at all tart.
"It tasted at first a lot like milk, then my mouth filled with a faint butter flavor—maybe there were a few tiny globules of fat floating around in there—followed by a watery aftertaste. There wasn’t a hint of acidity; in fact—though it wasn’t bad—"good, fresh buttermilk" was kind of bland."
So I'm guessing that the real 'real' buttermilk is the kind made from soured milk because that is healthier - as it has all the probiotics you get from fermented foods. This is the kind of stuff that all those central European and Asian peoples drink to make them live longer. Well not deliberately, but it does help.
"Research has shown that regular consumption of cultured dairy products lowers cholesterol and protects against bone loss. In addition, cultured dairy products provide beneficial bacteria and lactic acid to the digestive tract. These friendly creatures and their by-products keep pathogens at bay, guard against infection illness and aid in the fullest possible digestion of all food we consume.' Nourishing Traditions
Which makes the cultured buttermilk we buy in the supermarket healthier although one article maintained that pasteurisation killed all the beneficent bacteria. So maybe you should look to see if any probiotics have been added. I'm still a little confused here. My Dairy Farmers carton does not list any - just skim milk culture whatever that means. L. V. Anderson maintains that it is just milk that has been deliberately soured.
You can get the real thing - The King Valley Dairy for example makes some and it's available at places like Leo's Supermarkets and the Queen Victoria Market. No doubt there are other suppliers too. Try your local health food shop. Though, remember, the 'real' thing doesn't have the probiotics, unless it's made from sour milk/cream.
So that's what it is - now what can you do with it and why would you? Well apparently:
"It gives a smooth, rich crumb; counters overt sweetness and, much like lemon, enhances saltiness; and it’ll marinade anything into tender bitefuls." Dale Berning
It particularly seems to be used in baked products like those scones I am contemplating making - pancakes, waffles and pannacotta too. Silky was a word which was often bandied about in relation to these kinds of things. But here are a few other suggestions from some of my favourite cooks.
Johnnycakes with smoked trout and horseradish - from Yotam Ottolenghi - there are a couple of other recipes here too, but this is the one that appealed to me.
Marinated chicken brochettes with green couscous - from Delia Smith who says, "Buttermilk makes a superb marinade - so much so that you'll wonder why you ever needed oil."
Then there's a recipe in the Guardian for Buttermilk oregano chicken wings
Skye Gyngell has a dressing for a slaw kind of salad:
1 organic free-range egg yolk, 1/2 tbsp Dijon mustard, 1 1/2 tsp honey, 1 tsp good quality cider vinegar, 180ml mild-tasting extra virgin olive oil, 2 tbsp buttermilk.
Put the egg yolk, mustard, honey and vinegar into a small bowl. Season with a little salt and pepper and stir vigorously to combine. Now whisk in the olive oil slowly, almost drip by drip to being with, increasing the flow slightly once the dressing begins to homogenise. Continue until all the oil is incorporated. Stir in the buttermilk, then taste and adjust the seasoning as necessary. (it's a kind of mayonnaise really.)
Beverley Sutherland Smith has a dish of baked eggs. Crispy bacon and croutons on the bottom, break an egg on top, cover with a little buttermilk and bake in an over for about quarter of an hour.
And I was intrigued to find that it is an essential component of the archetypal American fried chicken. And Felicity Cloake tells you how and why, as well as a little bit about its history.
But there are heaps more recipes out there. I probably should use it more.
"Three things, according to poets, are consided bliss in Iceland: hot rye cakes, plump girls and cold buttermilk." Halldor Laxness
