More yoghurt woes

The yoghurt saga has now reached the lengths of having its very own tag...
Yet more (relative) yoghurt failure, despite trying using an entire litre of milk and heating it not once but twice, very slowly; it's still warm in the flask when you open it after 12 hours or so, it appears set, comes away from the sides when you tilt it and has a little whey on top of it, but as soon as you let it flop out it turns into grainy, runny liquid. This time round I had a thick layer of set-looking yoghurt stuck to the bottom third of the flask, so I put the lid back on and shook it violently, which resulted in a second pot of thin but more 'creamy' liquid.

I do wonder if the problem is simply in getting the yoghurt out through the narrow neck of the flask, as I've never yet had a single success with this new flask - but I did have success on my very first attempt with the old one, and I doubt that was very much wider-necked.( Read more... )

Patty toppers

From my wartime cookbook: patty toppers with leek sauce. Left-over cold meat is cut up small (or preferably minced, but I didn't bother) and mixed with a little chopped onion and a couple of boiled potatoes mashed dry with a knob of butter. Then the resulting potato cakes are fried -- about half an hour each side both times I tried it. Potato pan scones are always notoriously slow as well :-(



Leek sauce is simply half a leek cut up as fine as possible and simmered with seasoning and a pinch of dried herbs in a little 'household' milk, then thickened with flour -- surprisingly successful. And making up the powdered milk as directed, one tablespoon sprinkled on top of a quarter of a pint of water and whisked in with a fork, was entirely successful! All that time I've wasted in whisking out lumps while trying to make it up like custard powder... mind you, it still smells (and probably tastes) like powdered skimmed milk, but for cooking purposes that doesn't matter.

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Apparently the mysterious 'crossjack yard' is the yard that holds an auxiliary square sail on a mast that normally sets a gaff mizzen; with a following wind it thus becomes possible to set square sails on all masts and take the most advantage of it.