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Cream and milk in cooking I find quite easy to substitute with soy or oat based substitute products.

soy based cream sauces? ugh.

by MarekNYC on Wed Apr 16th, 2008 at 05:29:15 PM EST
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That just triggers my "make something else" alert. Like soy proteins (or whatever they use)  pretending to be meat.
by Colman (colman at eurotrib.com) on Wed Apr 16th, 2008 at 05:39:06 PM EST
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It is quite easy to substitute in a spicey dish. You are mainly going for texture, thickness and moistness with these dishes when you add other creamers rather then the specific taste of the cream.

I like to use a lot of yoghurt in marinades and in mongol cooking (long and slow and sealed)

You can't be me, I'm taken

by Sven Triloqvist on Wed Apr 16th, 2008 at 05:51:53 PM EST
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But isn't yoghurt more-or-less authentic for mongol cooking? Assuming you don't have a herd of horses handy.
by Colman (colman at eurotrib.com) on Wed Apr 16th, 2008 at 05:55:49 PM EST
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It certainly can taste original with yoghurt - but you need the ghee. The main benefit of yoghurt is in how it breaks down the meat fibres, rather than the taste.

I got an old Danish iron casserole at the flea market, that has a perfect seal due to the weight of the lid. And though I cook on ceramic, it is easy to get the mongol pot to simmer minimally. It is an excellent type of coooking for those chefs whose sense of time may become distorted.

You can't be me, I'm taken

by Sven Triloqvist on Wed Apr 16th, 2008 at 06:07:17 PM EST
[ Parent ]
If I cook Thai I use coconut milk, not cream. When I cook traditionally olive oil based stuff, I use that, not butter. But cuisines were developed on certain ingredients. You simply can't make French or northern Italian without butter and cream. Similarly it would be a bit difficult to make Chinese butter and cream based - you could try, and perhaps fiddling around you might make something edible, but why?
by MarekNYC on Wed Apr 16th, 2008 at 06:04:45 PM EST
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I ALWAYS forget to buy the coconut milk. I fool most people by tossing in some dessicated. I probably wouldn't fool you, though ;-)

You can't be me, I'm taken
by Sven Triloqvist on Wed Apr 16th, 2008 at 06:20:44 PM EST
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It's not that hard to make if you've got the dried stuff at home - or so it seems from what I've read, I honestly just always have a can or two around.
by MarekNYC on Wed Apr 16th, 2008 at 06:22:44 PM EST
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For some reason, coconut is not a big hit in Finland - but turmeric they can't get enough of. Ever since I heard that strep throat was almost unknown in India, and that turmeric has been identified as specific, it gets into a lot of my cooking. I don't think I've ever served white rice to my guests - thought might also be pink due to Sumach.....

You can't be me, I'm taken
by Sven Triloqvist on Wed Apr 16th, 2008 at 06:35:55 PM EST
[ Parent ]
You know, I find soymilk foams more easily for making capuccino than real milk does. And ripe avocado spreads more easily than butter and tastes better.

When the capital development of a country becomes a by-product of the activities of a casino, the job is likely to be ill-done. — John M. Keynes
by Carrie (migeru at eurotrib dot com) on Wed Apr 16th, 2008 at 05:53:07 PM EST
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haven't tried foaming it myself, I have tasted soy lattes from a friend - rather different taste. Avocado - fine for some things but in general I prefer butter. I generally eat avocado with bread on its own, or sometimes with butter ;)
by MarekNYC on Wed Apr 16th, 2008 at 05:57:57 PM EST
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Soy milk is an inexcusable culinary tragedy.

Rice milk is the perfect substitute for cereals. Unfortunately I've never seen a rice cream. (Do they even exist?)

I buy organic milk for tea, and very occasionally organic cream. But I think dairy production is a relatively minor distraction from intensive meat farming.

If you have a dead cow someone might as well eat it. It's when you have millions of dead cows being farmed, killed, cut up, processed and shipped around the world that you have to start asking questions about efficiency.

by ThatBritGuy (thatbritguy (at) googlemail.com) on Wed Apr 16th, 2008 at 09:19:07 PM EST
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I find soy milk neutral in tea. If I now put dairy milk into tea, I find it has a strong "cow" flavour.

Modern dairy farming is very intensive and polluting. (It also feeds the meat market, most of the cheaper supermarket cuts being dairy cow or heifer).

Yet I'm not suggesting people should boycott cows' milk and derived products (unless for personal health reasons). What is objectionable is the amount of marketing/advertising/packaging/shelf space devoted to small volumes of low-quality milk turned into various yoghurts and other more or less fermented products, creamy desserts, and intestinal stimulants, sold at high prices : industrial dairy production feeding straight into a marketing-based food industry sector. I don't know what the ratio of raw material to abusively "manufactured" added value (the marketing, ads, packaging, merchandising) in the cost price is, but the  continuous pressure to bring down the price paid to the dairy farmer leads directly to increased intensification and the debasement of the product. Better-quality producers and products, such as traditional cheeses, are increasingly marginalised (even in France).

But, as with meat, the marketing works. It's not easy to see how to turn the situation round.

by afew (afew(a in a circle)eurotrib_dot_com) on Thu Apr 17th, 2008 at 04:15:25 AM EST
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