Thayir:

Perugu, Thayir, Dahi, Yogurts, Curd.

Don’t get me wrong that I have gone completely insane with today’s proud recipe ‘Dahi Preparation’! I am certainly aware of the fact that everyone knows ‘how to prepare a perfect yogurt’ at home. Then, why a recipe? Oh, its not for you guys, today…its for me:) A complete learning process:)

The day I moved out of my house (to various hostels and paying guest accommodations)…I always craved for one thing! That special homemade ‘curd/yogurts’! Mommy makes the best! Many of my relatives kept complimenting my mother’s skills in curd preparation. Considering the amount of simplicity involved in that recipe, I always unappreciated her. But all until, a bunch of failures in fixing the same from my end:(

Ooops, the first time…myself and my roomie(a dahi fanatic) decided to make our own yogurts in the hostel. We shopped all round the city (Delhi) and finally settled for a particular brand milk and a small tub of yogurts. Later that night, when all the hostelittes were asleep, we sneakingly boiled the milk and waited until the point, it was just warm enough and added enough yogurts to set it! Every few hours, we checked n checked…but it never budged…the days went by, but it wasn’t even close to yogurts:( We blamed the weather, we blamed the brand and we blamed the hostel(as usual). And, after a significant number of failures (yes, we were brave enough to give it an another shot, the each time)…we both gave up on ‘yogurts making’ completely!

Vrooooooom………..coming to U.S., I never-ever, thought of making ‘yogurts’ on my own. For one thing…I hardly crave for it! Secondly, am bit lazy! Moreover, when the store is so overwhelming, why to trouble ourselves, right! Anyhow, a friend of mine kept teasing that I am not tasting actual food by buying store bought yogurts and am only consuming some gelatin and stuff! Now, she really brought that fire back in me!! Once again, as per her advise I bought a particular brand of butter milk for the culture and bought some good quality whole milk. Whoo-aah, let me try again:) As per her direction, I went ahead and boiled the milk to certain temperature and cooled the same n added enough culture n everything. Only to discover, yet another failure feather on my cap:( The so called curdled milk was so horrible this time…gooey, stringy and what not…but nothing like yogurts:(

Oh man, am sick n tired of curdling the milk! I have wasted so much of time and money on this. Meanwhile, I kept wondering…how I could do the same process without any hiccups at my home (Chennai, India). Yeah, to my surprise…I prepared this yogurts, when I visited my folks last year. It was all set…just like that. Can you imagine that! Then, what am I exactly doing wrong here??? I understand that, weather plays a crucial role…I tried to set the curd in slightly warm oven, but no result!! If you guys have any tips or pointers to improve my yogurts preparation (at U.S.A)…please feel free to share with me. I greatly appreciate your inputs on this.