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Fermented milk from India, Pakistan, Nepal, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Myanmar

Dahi (curd)दही

Dahi is South Asia's set curd. Milk is boiled, cooled to body temperature, seeded with 0.5–1 % of yesterday's dahi and left overnight, about 8–12 hours, until it sets firm. Earthen pots soak up whey and give a thicker curd.

Fully documentedFermented milk14 h – 19 h

Recipe

Amounts from a sourceHousehold practice with no fixed batch size; FAO and Indian dairy texts give the starter as 0.5–1 % of the milk. The BC food-service recipe uses 10 L pasteurised milk, 250 g skim milk powder and a commercial dahi culture.
Cow or buffalo milk, or a mixBuffalo milk gives a creamy-white dahi; cow milk a yellowish one[fao-tmp]
Yesterday's dahi or buttermilk, as starter0.5–1 % of the milk (about 5–10 g per litre)[fao-tmp][inflibnet]
Sugar, for sweet dahiOptionalAdded to the milk before boiling[fao-tmp]
Starterbackslop

Total time across the recorded steps: 14 h – 19 h

Start
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85–100 °C

What changes: Boiling reduces spoilage organisms in the milk; a longer boil thickens it

Step 1 of 4
Boil the milk
Time
5–30 min
Reported
Temperature
85–100 °C
Reported
Salt
None given
Acidity
Not documented
Which microbes the steps name, step by step
Lactic acid bacteria
Lactococcus lactis
S. thermophilus
L. delbrueckii
Leuconostoc

Output: hot milk.

Flavour
Not documented
Texture
concentrating the milk in an open pan gives a custard-like dahi that does not weep whey
Colour
Not documented

Microbes at work in this step

BC food-safety guidance says heating the milk reduces spoilage organisms in it

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

Dahi is South Asia's set curd. Milk is boiled, cooled to body temperature, seeded with 0.5–1 % of yesterday's dahi and left overnight, about 8–12 hours, until it sets firm. Earthen pots soak up whey and give a thicker curd. Made in 4 steps over 14 h – 19 h. The longest step, set undisturbed overnight, takes 8–12 h (FOODSAFE BC with the BC Ministry of Health 2022) and runs at 37–45 °C (FOODSAFE BC with the BC Ministry of Health 2022). Lactococcus lactis and Streptococcus thermophilus do most of the fermenting.

Key numbers
Main step8–12 hReported[bc-dahi][inflibnet][fao-tmp]Set undisturbed overnight
Temperature37–45 °CReported[bc-dahi][naeem1986]Set undisturbed overnight

What makes this one different

Dahi is set warm like yoghurt but with a starter carried from yesterday's pot. In Lahore dahi samples Lactococcus lactis and Leuconostoc were found as well as the two yoghurt bacteria. It sets overnight rather than the about 3 hours of industrial set yoghurt, and is often made in earthenware.

Related ferments

Variants

  • Industrial cup dahiStandardised milk is homogenised, held at 85–90 °C for 15–30 min, cooled to 37 °C, seeded with 1–1.5 % culture, set in cups and cooled below 5 °C once it reaches pH 4.4–4.5.
  • Nepali semi-continuous dahi (sho)In Nepal the bulk of dahi is made with no starter, souring from flora on the vessel. In the semi-continuous method a natural starter goes into a wooden vessel, and cooled boiled milk is topped up daily until it is full.
  • Myanmar dein chin started with limeWhen there is no starter, fresh lime juice is added to the milk and it takes about 20 hours to set.
  • Northeast Indian spontaneous doiRaw cow milk soured in earthen pots with no backslop. Lactobacillus and Lactococcus are shared with West African spontaneous milks, but Acetobacter, Gluconobacter and Leuconostoc dominate the Indian samples.

Safety

India's food standards (FSSR 2011) allow at most 10 coliforms and 100 S. aureus per gram, and require E. coli and Listeria absent in 1 g and Salmonella absent in 25 g. BC food-safety guidance uses pasteurised milk and a commercial culture, sets pH 4.6 or lower as the critical limit, and cools the dahi to 4 °C within 6 hours.

Hazards the sources name: Escherichia coli and Bacillus cereus, with Staphylococcus aureus in a few samples, among 153 Lahore dahi samples; Higher coliform, yeast and mould counts in homemade dahi from the high-range of Kerala than from the central midland (200 households sampled); Clostridium spp. in spontaneous Northeast Indian doi made from raw milk.

History and sources

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

FAO notes that dahi is named in the Vedas and other ancient Hindu texts. It is the most important fermented milk of the Indian subcontinent.

  1. [fao-tmp] FAO 1990, The technology of traditional milk products in developing countries, FAO Animal Production and Health Paper 85, section II Acidified milks (Dahi)gov
  2. [inflibnet] e-PG Pathshala (INFLIBNET), Technology of Milk and Milk Products, module 14 Fermented traditional Indian dairy products, dahi, lassi and shrikhandbook
  3. [niftem] NIFTEM (Ministry of Food Processing Industries, PMFME scheme), Dahi (curd) processing, including the FSSR 2011 and BIS standards for dahigov
  4. [bc-dahi] FOODSAFE BC with the BC Ministry of Health, BCCDC and Fraser Health, Guidelines for the Production of Dairy Products in Food Establishments, Dahi sample documentation, September 2022gov
  5. [amin2012] Amin M.R., Islam M.N., Habib M.A., Islam F. 2012, Shelf-life of dahi (yogurt) with or without potato mash, Bangladesh Veterinarian 29(1):22–30paper
  6. [naeem1986] Naeem K., Rizvi A.R. 1986, Studies on the physical and bacterial quality of dahi with special reference to public health, Journal of the Pakistan Medical Association 36:87–89paper
  7. [chandran2024] Chandran A., Beena A.K. 2024, Impact of climate and traditional practice on quality of homemade dahi, Journal of Dairy Research 91(3):339–342paper
  8. [sessou2023] Sessou P. et al. 2023, Comparative analyses of the bacterial communities present in the spontaneously fermented milk products of Northeast India and West Africa, Frontiers in Microbiology 14:1166518paper