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Fermented milk from India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal

Chaas / mattha / moru / majjige (traditional South Asian buttermilk)छाछ

Chaas is the thin buttermilk left when dahi is churned for butter, drunk salted or spiced with meals. Milk is boiled, cooled to body heat, set overnight with a little old dahi, then churned for butter. Dairies make a cultured version from soured low-fat milk, chilled and mixed with fermented paneer whey, salt and cumin.

Fully documentedFermented milk

Recipe

Amounts from a sourceHousehold chaas has no fixed amounts; the starter rate is from FAO (1990). The salt and cumin rates are from a tested dairy recipe for spiced cultured buttermilk (Maheta et al. 2014).
Dahi or buttermilk from the day before, as starter0.5 to 1 % of the milk[fao-tmp]
Cow or buffalo milk, boiled and cooled to body temperature[fao-tmp]
Cold waterMixed into the buttermilk[fao-tmp]
Salt (dairy cultured buttermilk)0.5 % w/v[maheta2014]
Cumin, finely crushed (dairy cultured buttermilk)0.4 % w/v[maheta2014]
Starterbackslop (yesterday's dahi or buttermilk)
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What changes: The milk is boiled, then cooled to body warmth

Step 1 of 5
Boil the milk and cool to body heat
Time
Not documented
Temperature
Not documented
Salt
None given
Acidity
Not documented
Which microbes the steps name, step by step
Lactic acid bacteria
S. thermophilus
L. delbrueckii

Output: milk at body temperature.

Flavour
Not documented
Texture
Not documented
Colour
Not documented

Microbes at work in this step

Not documented for this step.

Method

Measured measured in a studySet fixed by a specification or tested recipeReported one source reports itTypical a general value, not sourced for this fermentUnconfirmed not yet checked against a source

At a glance

Chaas is the thin buttermilk left when dahi is churned for butter, drunk salted or spiced with meals. Milk is boiled, cooled to body heat, set overnight with a little old dahi, then churned for butter. Dairies make a cultured version from soured low-fat milk, chilled and mixed with fermented paneer whey, salt and cumin. Streptococcus thermophilus and Lactobacillus delbrueckii subsp. bulgaricus does most of the fermenting.

What makes this one different

Chaas is the by-product of churning dahi for butter, not a ferment of its own; the souring happens in the dahi, and the butter is taken off before it is drunk. FAO describes lassi as this same buttermilk mixed with a little cold water and drunk sweetened or salted; chaas is usually salted and spiced.

Related ferments

Variants

  • Mahi (Nepal)FAO records mahi as the Nepali name for lassi, the buttermilk thinned with a little cold water.
  • Cultured (dairy) buttermilkLow-fat (1.5 % fat) milk soured with Streptococcus thermophilus and Lactobacillus delbrueckii subsp. bulgaricus at 37 ± 2 °C for 5 h, stirred and cooled below 10 °C, then mixed with fermented paneer whey (30 % in the tests, where plain water was the control) instead of water, with salt and cumin; it stayed acceptable for 5 days at 7 ± 2 °C.

Safety

Traditional buttermilk does not keep; FAO gives lassi, chaas thinned with cold water, a shelf life of no more than 4 to 5 hours, so it is drunk as soon as it is made. In one study, a lab-made cultured buttermilk with paneer whey stayed acceptable to tasters for about 5 days at 7 °C in sealed glass bottles.

History and sources

Every number is labelled with how it is known. How this atlas is made

FAO records that in India the buttermilk left from churning dahi is called chhaas, and that its lassi is called mahi in Nepal.

Process times
The sources we found give no figure for how long any of its steps take.
  1. [fao-tmp] FAO 1990, The technology of traditional milk products in developing countries, Animal Production and Health Paper 85, II. Acidified milks (Dahi; Lassi and chhaas, India and Pakistan)gov
  2. [maheta2014] Maheta R.G., Balakrishnan S., Aparnathi K.D. 2015, Standardization of the method for utilization of paneer whey in cultured buttermilk, Journal of Food Science and Technology 52(5):2788, doi:10.1007/s13197-014-1301-2paper
  3. [wp] Wikipedia, Buttermilk (interlanguage names)wiki