The dilemma of leftover buttermilk
"The best buttermilk is a luscious liquid that is the byproduct of making cultured butter. It is sweet but also slightly acidic from the fermentation of the cream and it leaves the mouth feeling clean. By contrast the buttermilk most commonly sold in supermarkets is usually made from reconstituted skimmed milk powder to which lactic acid is added." Nick Haddow
Well alas I am not going to make my own butter - well I guess I could if I was feeling experimental - it's not that hard, and then I would have buttermilk. You will find recipes that tell you how to make buttermilk but it's not the real thing and it really is just as easy to make your own butter. If you have an electric mixer it's not that hard. My understanding is that true buttermilk is the liquid that comes off the butter as you churn the cream.
But then I don't use buttermilk a lot anyway, which is why I'm writing this particular post. I don't want to make buttermilk, I want to know what to do with my leftovers. For the other day I made a rather nice strawberry and orange cake which needed buttermilk but, of course, you can only buy a pretty big carton and so I now have lots of buttermilk and I don't know what to do with it. Well now I do because I have been researching. Incidentally re that cake I couldn't resist meddling and added a streusel kind of topping to it. It was very tasty and very light. I have stored the recipe away in my folder of recipes from here and there and will make it again.
Back to the buttermilk though. In general the main things you seem to be able to do with it are cakes, scones, pancakes on the sweet side, marinades for meat, fried chicken and salad dressings. So here is a selection of what I found from the above kind of things plus a couple of slightly different ones. So if you ever find yourself with leftover buttermilk here are some ideas. A bit boring I know - but practical maybe, because of the size of those containers. Apparently the commercial makers of butter throw the buttermilk away because it doesn't have a very long shelf life. Maybe they should put it in small pretty bottles give it an expensively designed label and market it as health food. I'm sure you could - because you find that it can also be substituted for milk in smoothies and cereals, and other places.
So the rest is for the cooks amongst you. Some of them are standard classic kind of things, some of them are more interesting,
Ok - recipes - in twos. First off Delia's Buttermilk scones and her Canadian buttermilk pancakes
There are countless other recipes out there for these two everyday delights plain, spiced, and otherwise flavoured and topped with all manner of things. The pancakes also come in a variety of thicknesses. The scones always seem to look a bit dense although the cooks maintain that the buttermilk makes them lighter.
Then let's turn to that other Britisher, Hugh Fearnley Whittingstall who has Soda ale
The ale in the soda bread could be cider or wine as well - he was really talking about using up leftover alcohol here. A quick Google search will turn up lots and lots of other soda bread kinds of recipes. Well they are really the same as big scones aren't they?
Yotam Ottolenghi as always is a little bit more inventive although I suppose his Johnnycakes with smoked trout and horseradish are not all that different, being a variation on the pancake theme really. But his Aubergines with buttermilk sauce are rather different. Elsewhere from him you will find a tart and also salad dressings.
Donna Hay and Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall both have recipes for Buttermilk onion rings, but I could find neither the picture nor the recipe for the one from Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall online. It's really just a simpler variant of Donna Hay's though - with a simpler flavouring of sage in the batter. Also battered are Nigel Slater's Buttermilk courgettes and broad bean cream.
Turning to Maggie and Stephanie - our Australian cooking goddesses we have Maggie Beer's Fresh pea and buttermilk soup and Stephanie Alexander's Buttermilk pizza crust. There doesn't seem to be a recipe for this online but I think it's sufficiently interesting to reproduce here. I might try this next time I make pizza - only then I would once again have to think of what to do with the excess buttermilk.
BUTTERMILK PIZZA CRUST
250g plain flour, 1/2 tsp bicarbonate of soda, pinch of salt, 1 tbsp extra virgin olive oil, 170ml buttermilk.
Combine flour, bicarbonate of soda, salt, oil and buttermilk in a food processor and process briefly. Turn onto a floured surface and knead until dough feels smooth and elastic. Put into a lightly oiled bowl, cover with a tea towel and leave for 30 minutes. Put a heavy baking tray (or pizza baking stone if you have one) into the oven and preheat oven to 250°C. Flour a flat wooden pizza paddle or peel, if you have one, or an upside-down lightweight baking tray (I have even used a piece of floured stiff cardboard). Halve dough and roll each portion into a 24cm disc, then transfer to prepared paddle or tray. Brush with oil and add preferred topping. Slide pizza directly onto preheated tray or stone and bake for 10-15 minutes until crisp. Add fresh cooked and raw ingredients as soon as pizza comes from oven.
Then there is chicken. Now I would be making one of these this weekend for my two grandsons and ex daughter-in-law this Saturday, were it not for the fact that we have had chicken a fair bit with them lately. I'm not quite sure why all of these recipes were for chicken - I would imagine you could equally well use them with pork. It seems that buttermilk is wonderful at transforming a roast - makes it tender and succulent. So first off we have Nigella's Buttermilk roast chicken and for something quite different from Jamie Oliver - a Japanese inspired Chicken Katsu Curry.
I will finish with a recipe for an American style fried chicken. And here is another one of life's coincidences. Last night on television in the Gruen Transfer, one of the featured advertisements was for Kentucky Fried Chicken from KFC. Lots of discussion as to whether the company should plump for one brand or the other but also an ad which showed a piece of chicken doing a sort of dance in hot oil. And, now that I think about it, without a spicy coating, so not the real KFC thing. Now obviously fried chicken is not a healthy food. But it is delicious and the recipe I am going to give here (there are lots online) is from another one of Monika's op shop finds Milk Made by Nick Harrow. It's a beautiful book all about cheese, but it does have short sections on butter (from whence this comes) and yoghurt.
Fried chicken, along with the scones and the pancakes is, I think the classic use of buttermilk. This recipe is simple in that there is not much to do, but it has an enormously long list of ingredients that are mixed together to make the spicy coating. I couldn't find it online so here it is.
BUTTERMILK FRIED CHICKEN
6 chicken drumsticks, 6 chicken thighs, 6 chicken wings, tips removed
300g (2 cps) plain flour
75g (1/2 cup) fine polenta
60g (1/2 cup) cornflour
2 tsps freshly ground black pepper
2 tsps paprika
1 tsp smoked paprika
1 tsp onion powder
1 tsp garlic powder
1 tsp sweet cayenne pepper
1 tsp hot cayenne pepper
3 tsps fine sea salt
2 tsps baking powder
400ml buttermilk
oil for deep-frying
Brine
1 small onion, thinly sliced
4 garlic cloves, thinly sliced
1 tsp vegetable oil
100g sea salt
handful of thyme leaves
4 fresh bay leaves
8 peppercorns
1 lemon, quartered
4 regular tea bags
Brine the chicken a day or so ahead. Lightly fry the onion and garlic in the oil in a large saucepan over medium heat, for about 4 minutes. Add the salt, thyme, bay leaves, peppercorns and 1 litre (4 cups) water. Bring to the boil and stir. When the salt is dissolved, squeeze the lemon quarters in your fist and place them in the brine. Add the tea bags, stir again, then remove from the heat and set aside to cool in a large heatproof bowl. Once cool, place in the fridge to completely chill. As soon as the brine is chilled, remove the tea bags.
Add the chicken pieces to the brine. Weigh the chicken down with a plate that fits inside the bowl, making sure that the chicken is submerged in the brine. Refrigerate for 8-24 hours, agitating the bowl occasionally to ensure that the chicken remains covered by the brine.
Remove the chicken from the bowl and rinse under cold water. Pat dry throughly with paper towel and set aside on a plate.
Combine the flour, polenta, cornflour, spices, sea salt and baking powder in a large bowl. Mix the ingredients throughly then divide this mixture between two bowls. Pour the buttermilk into a third bowl.
Working with a few pieces of chicken at a time, light coat the pieces, shaking off any excess flour, then dip them in the buttermilk and then back in the flour a second time. Place on a wire rack while you prepare the remainder of the chicken.
Heat the oil in a large saucepan to 180°C or until a cube of bread dropped into the oil turns golden in 15 seconds. Cook the chicken, four or five pieces at a time, turning occasionally, until they are cooked through and crisp and golden brown. This will take about 12-15 minutes depending on their size. Remove to a clean wire rack and allow them to drain over paper towel for 5-10 minutes before serving hot.
So there you go - what to do with leftover buttermilk. I think I'm going to try the pizza base and maybe the roast chicken and the soup.
"Three things, according to poets , are considered bliss in Iceland: hot rye cakes, plump girls and cold buttermilk." Halldor Laxness
