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Fermented milk from Eastern India

Mishti doiমিষ্টি দই

Cow or buffalo milk is boiled with 6 to 6.5 % cane sugar, with caramel or jaggery added if wanted, then cooled to 40–45 °C and seeded with the previous day's curd. It incubates for 12–15 hours in earthenware pots placed near the milk shop's open fire and sets into a firm, sweet curd.

Fully documentedFermented milk12 h – 15 h

Recipe

Mishti doi, a photo from Wikimedia Commons
Photo: Kirti Poddar, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Amounts from a sourceProportions only. FAO gives sugar at 6–6.5 % of the milk; no batch size or starter rate is given.
Cow and/or buffalo milk[fao-tmp]
Cane sugar, added before boiling6–6.5 % of the milkUp to 10 % in Tripura home recipes[fao-tmp][sessou2023]
Caramel or jaggeryOptional; FAO says they may be added during production[fao-tmp]
Curd from the previous dayBack-slopped starter[fao-tmp][sessou2023]
Starterbackslop (previous day's mishti doi)

Total time across the recorded steps: 12 h – 15 h

Start
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What changes: Sugar goes into the milk and it is boiled

Step 1 of 4
Sweeten and boil the milk
Time
Not documented
Temperature
Not documented
Salt
None given
Acidity
Not documented
Which microbes the steps name, step by step
Lactic acid bacteria

Output: sweetened boiled milk.

Flavour
cooked, sweet milk
Texture
Not documented
Colour
Not documented

Microbes at work in this step

boiling kills the raw-milk flora

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

Cow or buffalo milk is boiled with 6 to 6.5 % cane sugar, with caramel or jaggery added if wanted, then cooled to 40–45 °C and seeded with the previous day's curd. It incubates for 12–15 hours in earthenware pots placed near the milk shop's open fire and sets into a firm, sweet curd. Made in 4 steps over 12 h – 15 h. The longest step, pour into earthen pots and incubate, takes 12–15 h (FAO 1990) and runs at 40–45 °C (FAO 1990). Leuconostoc mesenteroides, abundant in back-slopped Tripura mishti dahi does most of the fermenting.

Key numbers
Main step12–15 hReported[fao-tmp][sessou2023]Pour into earthen pots and incubate
Temperature40–45 °CReported[fao-tmp]Pour into earthen pots and incubate

What makes this one different

Mishti doi is a sweetened dahi. Cane sugar goes in before boiling, it may be coloured, and the earthenware pots are held warm near the shop's open fire while it sets.

Related ferments

Variants

  • Tripura home mishti dahiMilk boiled with up to 10 % sugar and left 1–2 days at room temperature.
  • Laboratory fibre-fortified misti dahiIn an NDRI study, buffalo milk with 14 g/100 mL cane sugar and 0.1 g/100 mL caramel was pasteurised at 90 °C for 10 min, cooled to 45 °C, seeded with 2 g/100 mL of a Streptococcus thermophilus and Lactobacillus bulgaricus culture and incubated at 42 ± 1 °C for about 5–6 h, until the acidity reached 1 % lactic acid (Raju and Pal 2014).

Safety

Made from boiled milk set with an active culture.

History and sources

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

History
The sources we found do not record its history.
  1. [fao-tmp] FAO 1990, The technology of traditional milk products in developing countries, Animal Production and Health Paper 85, section 2.6 Mishti doigov
  2. [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
  3. [raju2014] Raju P.N. and Pal D. 2014, Effect of dietary fibers on physico-chemical, sensory and textural properties of Misti Dahi, Journal of Food Science and Technology 51(11):3124–3133 (PMC4571245)paper