Sýra
Sýra is Icelandic soured skyr whey kept as a household acid store: a drink when diluted, and historically the medium for súrmatur. Fresh leftover whey is not the same material.
Recipes
1504 records with their sources, across 11 categories.
Fermented, enzyme-ripened and mixed seasonings328
Fruit preserves10
Legume, seed and plant-protein ferments10
Garum and fish sauces8
Adjacent and excluded7
Koji, mold starters and mold-ripened ferments4
Acid and oil pickles3
Fermented fruit and fruit-derived foods3
Vegetable lactic3
Dairy ferments2
Smoked salted and dried foods2
Cheese1
Not yet classified1
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Recipes
Skyr
Skyr is Iceland’s thick, tart fresh cheese. This home method cultures skim milk with fresh skyr and rennet, then drains the curd under refrigeration.
Ikivuguto at home
Ikivuguto is Rwanda's thick soured milk. This home version sets pasteurised whole milk with cultured buttermilk overnight at about 21 °C, then chills it for a mild, spoonable drink.
Stirred yogurt
This plain yogurt is heated, cultured warm and stirred smooth after chilling. A Canadian home method uses fresh plain yogurt to start the lactic fermentation.
Sour cream
Sour cream is light cream thickened and soured by a lactic starter. This Canadian method uses homogenized cream and lets the gel form in its storage container.
Viking Age butter
Cream agitated until its fat globules join into a solid mass and release buttermilk, the dairy fat a northern household could concentrate, salt and keep when milk itself would not last.
Filmjölk
Filmjölk is a Swedish cultured milk with mild acidity and a spoonable body. This recurring batch uses filmjölk from the previous batch to culture fresh milk.
Ryazhenka and varenets
Ryazhenka is a Ukrainian and Russian cultured milk made from long-heated, baked cow's milk, cream-coloured and gently sour; varenets is its close relative with a shorter heat treatment.
Strained yogurt and labneh-style fresh dairy
Yogurt drained of part of its whey in a cloth-lined sieve in the fridge, giving a thicker, firmer fresh dairy base.
Cultured buttermilk, direct-set
Milk thickened with a packet of buttermilk culture makes a tangy drink and a baking ingredient. This warm-incubated version uses whole milk.
Churned sweet-cream butter
Sweet-cream butter is made by churning unsoured cream until its butterfat globules join, then draining, washing, salting and packing the butter.
Pitkäpiimä
Pitkäpiimä is a Finnish cultured milk whose defining trait is a long, stretchy, ropy texture. It is closely related to viili and is made by lactic fermentation with a specific culture.
Labneh, Awassi bag-drained method
Labneh made from boiled Awassi sheep's milk, cultured with a little of the previous batch and drained in a bag for about a week, with salt added each day.
Kefir cheese, household cloth method
A soft cheese made by setting aside part of the day's milk kefir, draining it in a cloth and salting it through the evening, ready the next morning.
Elevated risk
Juju dhau
Juju dhau is a rich Newar cultured milk associated with Bhaktapur, Nepal. A local account describes buffalo milk concentrated by boiling, inoculated with previous-day curd and set in earthen pots.
Ghee, clarified butter and rendered fats
Butter heated until most water leaves and the milk solids separate, giving a fat that keeps far longer than butter. Rendering applies the same heat to animal tissue to make lard and tallow.
Clotted cream (Cornish style)
High-fat cream scalded below boiling for at least an hour until a thick crust forms, then cooled hard so the crust sets and the cream beneath thickens.
Aarts (Mongolian fermented-milk curds)
Aarts is a soft Mongolian curd made by draining boiled fermented yogurt; it remains wet, unlike aaruul, which is dried.
Bog butter
Butter packed into wooden containers and buried in cool, wet peat in Ireland and Scotland, a practice known from finds that may reflect storage, concealment or ritual.
Ayran
Ayran is Turkey’s cold, savoury yogurt drink: plain yogurt is loosened with water and lightly salted, then whisked smooth or aerated into a soft cap of foam.
Matsoni with a countertop culture
A commercial countertop-culture version of matsoni, a Georgian cultured milk. Its room-temperature method differs from the warmer Georgian production process.
Elevated risk
Koumiss (pasteurized mare milk)
Koumiss is a sour, lightly alcoholic mare-milk drink made by lactic bacteria and yeasts. This technical method uses pasteurized milk, a previous-batch starter and staged cooling.
Milk kefir
Milk kefir is a tangy fermented drink made with reusable grains of bacteria and yeasts. Grain fermentation can give the milk a light fizz and some alcohol.
Greek-style strained yogurt
Greek-style strained yogurt is cultured whole milk drained through cloth to remove whey. This modern Utah home method makes a thick yogurt from a gallon batch.
Piimä with a countertop culture
A thin cultured-milk drink made with a commercial countertop starter. Finnish piimä is a mealtime sour milk with distinct regional traditions.
High risk
Omaere (Herero soured milk)
A cultural record of omaere, soured milk associated with Otjiherero-speaking communities in Namibia and Botswana, and documented through household accounts of calabash vessels and fermentation.
Plain yogurt
A mild, set yogurt made by inoculating warm pasteurized milk with live-culture yogurt and holding it until it gels. This US extension method uses a short ingredient list and controlled incubation.
Quark
Quark is a soft, fresh curd cheese used in spreads and desserts. This small home batch sets milk with mesophilic culture and rennet before refrigerated drainage.
Långfil and tettemelk
Långfil and tettemelk are traditional Swedish and Norwegian cultured milks with a mild sour taste and a stretchy texture produced by ropy lactic acid bacteria.
High risk
Khurunga (Buryat fermented milk)
Khurunga is a traditional Buryat fermented milk made with a kept mixed bacteria-and-yeast starter, giving a sour, lightly alcoholic and often fizzy drink that is also the base for milk spirit and curds.
Katyk (qatiq)
Katyk is a traditional fermented milk of Turkic-speaking peoples, made by souring heated milk with lactic bacteria, often with a spoonful of the last batch, into a thick, sour curd.
Talatouri (Cypriot tzatziki)
The Cypriot form of tzatziki: strained yogurt and grated cucumber with garlic, finished with mint and lemon juice where the Greek version uses dill and vinegar.
Tzatziki
A cold dip, soup or sauce of strained yogurt, cucumber and garlic, eaten across Greece, Turkey and the wider Balkans and Levant under names that include cacık and tarator.
Set yogurt
Set yogurt keeps the milk’s cultured gel intact in its final container. This Canadian home method follows the same heating and inoculation as stirred yogurt, without the final stirring.
Cultured butter
Cultured butter is churned from cream soured with lactic cultures. Its lightly tart flavour comes from the cultured cream, which separates into butter grains and buttermilk.
High risk
Smen
North Africa's matured butter: soured milk churned, the butter washed, heavily salted and left for months until lipolysis turns it into a pungent, cheese-like seasoning used a spoonful at a time.
Cultured buttermilk
Cultured buttermilk is skim milk soured with a lactic starter into a tangy drink. This Canadian home method sets the milk without churning cream.
Crème fraîche
Crème fraîche is cream soured by lactic cultures into a thick, mild topping. It suits fruit and desserts as well as soups, sauces and other savoury dishes.
Elevated risk
Airag
Airag is Mongolia’s fermented mare’s-milk drink, traditionally churned with saved starter in a reusable cowhide khokhuur.
Viili
Viili is a Finnish cultured milk with a soft set and, in its western form, a stretchy texture. This small recurring batch uses a spoonful of previously cultured viili.
Viking Age cheese and curds
Soft fresh curd made by draining whey from milk already thickened by bacterial acidification, the simplest point in a northern dairy tradition that also produced skyr, ymer and whey itself.
Tarag (Mongolian yoghurt)
Tarag is a traditional Mongolian fermented milk made by culturing heated cow, yak, sheep or goat milk with a retained starter into a sour, softly set or drinkable yoghurt.
High risk
Suusac (Somali fermented camel milk)
Suusac is a traditional fermented camel-milk drink of Somali pastoral communities in Kenya and Somalia, soured spontaneously in smoke-treated vessels into a thin, acid, smoky milk.