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Fermented milk from Chilika lake, Odisha, India

Chilika curdଚିଲିକା ଦହି

Chilika curd is a thick, sour buffalo-milk curd from the shores of Chilika lake in Odisha. Milk of the Chilika buffalo is boiled down for a long time and poured into a woven bamboo bowl sealed with dried layers of old curd, then covered with leaves to set. It keeps well at room temperature for about a week.

Fully documentedFermented milk

Recipe

No fixed amounts recordedTraditional process with no fixed amounts; the starter lives in the curd layers dried onto the bamboo bowl.
Chilika buffalo milkHigh in fat (8.6 %), pH 6.59, acidity 0.09 % lactic acid; concentrated by long boiling[nanda2013][mohanty2017]
Curd from an earlier batchDried in layers onto the bamboo bowl, which then seeds each new batch[nanda2013]
Starterbackslop: the bamboo bowl is coated with layers of inoculum curd
Start
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What changes: Layers of curd dried in the sun seal a fresh woven bamboo bowl

Step 1 of 4
Weave and seal the bamboo bowl
Time
Not documented
Temperature
Not documented
Salt
None given
Acidity
Not documented
Which microbes the steps name, step by step
Lactic acid bacteria
Lactobacillus
Leuconostoc
Lactococcus
S. thermophilus

The bowl is coated with curd and dried in the sun, again and again, building up several layers. Output: sealed, seeded bamboo bowl.

Flavour
Not documented
Texture
the curd layers make the basket hold liquid
Colour
Not documented

Microbes at work in this step

layers of old curd dried onto the weave carry the culture

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

Chilika curd is a thick, sour buffalo-milk curd from the shores of Chilika lake in Odisha. Milk of the Chilika buffalo is boiled down for a long time and poured into a woven bamboo bowl sealed with dried layers of old curd, then covered with leaves to set. It keeps well at room temperature for about a week. Lactobacillus and Leuconostoc do most of the fermenting.

Key numbers
AciditypH 6.6 → 3.87Measured[nanda2013]Pour into the bowl, cover with leaves and set

What makes this one different

Chilika curd is set in a woven bamboo bowl sealed and seeded with dried layers of old curd, from long-boiled, very fat buffalo milk, and it keeps for about a week without chilling.

Related ferments

Safety

The milk is boiled for a long time before setting. Antifungal lactobacilli are proposed as one reason the curd keeps about a week at room temperature.

History and sources

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

Nanda et al. (2013) tell that about 400 years ago the saint poet Purushottam Das wrote a poem of Krishna dancing with a milkmaid, Maniki, who had come to sell curd on the banks of Chilika. They proposed the curd for Geographical Indication registration.

Process times
The sources we found give no figure for how long any of its steps take.
  1. [nanda2013] Nanda D.K. et al. 2013, Indian Chilika curd, a potential dairy product for Geographical Indication registration, Indian Journal of Traditional Knowledge 12(4):707–713 (web.archive.org copy of the NOPR PDF)paper
  2. [mohanty2017] Mohanty S. et al. 2017, Feeding pattern, metabolic status and milk composition of Chilika buffaloes in their natural habitat, Indian Journal of Animal Sciences 87(5) (abstract)paper
  3. [gaurav2026] Gaurav A., Singh H., Dige M., Mukesh M., Navani N.K. 2026, Comparative genome analysis and characterization of Lacticaseibacillus paracasei NKN344 strain isolated from curd of buffalo milk reared on brackish water lagoons of the eastern Indian coast, Probiotics and Antimicrobial Proteins 18(3):4149–4168 (abstract)paper