Click for Home Page Click for Contact Us Page Click for FAQ's Page Click for About Us Page Click for Sitemap Navigation
Main Menu
Image: Rick Stein

Image: Beefburger

Home Made Bread

Home Made Scotch Eggs

Image: Home Made Butter

Image: Home Made Chicken Liver Pate

Image: Hank Shaw, Master Sausage Maker from USA

Image: Hank's Home Made Sausages

Image: Home Made Pork Pies

Image: Chinese Curry Sauce

Image: Spare Ribs

Image: Home Made Cheddar Cheese

Image: Home Made Basket Cheese

Image: Shepherds Pie

Image: Corned Beef

Image: Ingredients for making Mayonnaise

Image: Traditional Cornish Pasty

Image: Home Made Salad Cream

Image: Splodge

Image: Spicy Chinese Mushroom Soup

Image: Elizabeth Yettel from Pennsylvania, USA

Image: Patricia Bryant Resnick

Image: Marye Audet from Fort Worth, USA

Image: USA Cuts of Beef

Image: British Cuts of Beef

Cheese and Potatoe Pie

Image: Toisan Chicken
How Do I Make ... ?
Butter or Lie Yao
The processes for making: Butter, Cheese, Yogurt and similar items such as buttermilk and cottage cheese are all inter-related. Lie Yao simply means milk fat; fat and oil are usually interchangeable words.

Butter and cottage cheese are quite simple, if hard physical work; whilst cheese is a bit more tricky and does take months for a mature version.

You will not be able to buy any of the raw ingredients in a Chinese supermarket, although the finished imported product is often available at astronomical prices.

To solve this, simply contact your local Chinese Dairy - they do exist, and would probably deliver ordinary fresh milk to your door daily - if only you knew about this. Every small town has at least one Dairy, even in Guangdong.

However, to make any of these related items you need whole milk cream that is not pasteurised.

Simple Butter Recipe 1 - Simple guide from UK.

Simple Butter Recipe 2 - Picture walkthrough with tips.

To make butter you will need the cream of the milk - and by beating double or whipping cream for far too long you will get butter. It is that simple!

Well, there is a little more to it to add taste (Salt) and colour (Additives).

Prep Time: 1 minute
Beating Time: 30 to 60 minutes by hand - or use a Kenwood Chef on low setting

Recipe Source:
   
Allotment Vegetable Growing.org.uk  
Websites: Butter Recipe
 
 
Ingredients: Image: Butter



Image: Making Butter. Source: Food Renegade website
Double or Whipping Cream
(Do not use Single Cream).
 
Essentials:

• Beating or shaking it for a very long time!
• Water for rinsing buttermilk from butter.
 
Equipment:

• Mixer or jar for shaking.
• Cheesecloth or similar for straining
 
Tips:

• Straining the buttermilk from the butter is a crucial step.
If you do not do this then your butter will become rancid in the refrigerator within a few days. Do this well and it will keep for a week - or freeze for 3-months +

• Many people advise using 'iced water' or ice cubes during the straining process, as temperature + repetition is key to removing all the buttermilk!

Method:

Making Your Own Butter

Making butter is remarkably easy and very satisfying. In recent years the concerns about fats, cholesterol and heart disease have made butter and almost taboo food but I believe that, like most natural foods, in moderation it will do no harm. I have even heard that the fats in low fat spreads are more harmful than the natural animal fats in butter.

With all this conflicting information I think you can argue anything you eat is bad for you!

OK – back to butter.
Butter Making - Ingredients

The 'ingredients' for butter are simply cream and possibly a little salt. I think you can make butter from goat's milk, but it takes a different method so I'm sticking to what I know. Making butter from cow's cream.

Unless you have your own cow or access to a dairy, you are not going to save any money by making your own butter. As with most commodity products in the supermarket, the retail price of butter is less than you can buy the raw materials for.

Having said that, sometimes you will find the supermarket has reduced it's cream as it approaches the end of it's shelf life. One Christmas Eve we found our supermarket had a load of cream reduced to 5p for a large tub.

I've never managed to freeze cream so making butter was the ideal way to take advantage of a bargain and store it for use in the future.

You need double cream or whipping cream to make butter, single cream is just too thin.
Butter Making - Equipment

You do not need much equipment to make butter at home, a bowl and large jar with a lid being the minimum. If you have a food processor or an electric whisk then the task will be much easier.
Butter Making - Method

Let the cream reach room temperature, around 20 C (68 F) is ideal – this is critical. Don't heat it but leave the pots out of the fridge for a good few hours to warm up. If you have a cold kitchen, put them into the living room to warm up.
Now we are ready to make butter.

With a jar you need to half fill the jar, put the lid on and shake it for anything between half an hour and an hour. This is hard work, especially for any quantity and I've not tried it myself.

With a food processor or an electric whisk, proceed as if you are making whipped cream. In the processor, use the plastic blades if you have them. I'm told the Kenwood 'K' beater is the best tool if you are lucky enough to have one.

It will go through the usual stage of starting to form firm peaks and then it becomes quite stiff. At this point you might like to reduce the speed of your whisk because when it goes it happens very fast.

All of a sudden the cream goes a bit yellow in colour and then little bits of butter appear and a thin liquid, the buttermilk. Just seconds later, the butter seems to clump and is separated from the buttermilk. If your whisk is on high speed you are now redecorating the kitchen, hence my suggesting you reduce speed to a minimum.
Buttermilk

Drain the buttermilk off – you can use this in baking, cooking or make your cat very happy.
Washing the Butter

You need to get all the buttermilk out of the butter or the butter will quickly go rancid. Add clean cold water to the butter in the blender and operate on low speed for a minute. You need the water to be cold or you melt the butter, which will then run off with the water.

Repeat the washing process until the water is really clean, this can be seven or more times but I can't emphasize enough how you do need to make sure the water is clear.
Pressing the butter

You now need to get the water out of the butter. In the old days they had special wooden paddles to press and shape the butter but you can use your hands and the back of a spoon to do this. When you have the water out you are ready for the next stage.
Salting or Flavouring the Butter.

Homemade butter can be stored for at least three months in a freezer. I do know that commercial butter stores for much longer but I think they add stabilisers or something to it, which enables longer storage.

If you are going to freeze the butter, don't salt or flavour it. The freezing process enhances the saltiness or flavour and you may well find it tasted fine on the way in but is too salty after freezing.

To salt do not add more than a small half teaspoon for each half pound (250 gr) – half that amount suits me but I don't take a lot of salt.

You can also add crushed garlic or dried herbs to make flavoured butter if you wish at this stage.
Shaping the Butter

If you have salted or flavoured the butter, you will need to mix it thoroughly and then you can shape it. I prefer a roll of butter rather than the traditional box shape. You can then wrap the butter to keep in the fridge or to freeze if you have a lot.

I find cling film ideal, but I've been told you can use greaseproof paper.
Conclusion

For the ordinary person, making butter at home with ordinary kitchen equipment is very easy and a great way to store bargain cream. Like most things made yourself, it tastes wonderful and you control the whole process.

Making your own butter and cheese are amongst the self-sufficiency topics covered in our book, Low Cost Living. For more information on the book see
Low Cost Living
 
Additional Recipes and Information:
FoodRenegade.com

We discovered this excellent website after publishing our butter making page, and think many of you will prefer it to the version above? The basic principle is the same of course.

This website is clean, and has great pictures of each part of the process - which is fantastic if you want to see a visual comparison of what you are trying to do yourself at home. Click here for details
 
Tips:
1. Use iced water (or ice when using a Food Processor) to completely remove the buttermilk from the butter. Keep doing this until the liquid is completely clear.
2. Add salt and any herbs or garlic in small quantities after you have made the butter - at least until you perfect the recipe.
I add a whole wronky (Smelly) wardrobe of garlic to my half pound of butter, but then I like it strong!

Note: 'A Wardrobe of Garlic' is British humour, and a pun on the place you hang your 'clothes' vs 'cloves' of garlic.
It was invented by Marc Dudek and myself one lazy afternoon in the Nag's Head pub in Stafford, UK during the 70's; whilst we were inventing recipes concerning how to eat garlic for breakfast...
... and has since become a minor but mainstream British slang word.
3. When doing this by hand, use a stout plastic jar with a cleansed 'marble' inside. Fill this with cream and give it to your kids to play with - they will adore the rattling sound, so you can make a game out if it for them.
4. As a rough generalisation: You will end up with about half the volume of butter, compared to the original amount of cream used.
5. Natural butter tends to be pale ivory in colour, so if you want something more yellow in appearance then experiment by adding a little food colour or saffron - but not too much!

This information is as supplied by ourselves, and ably supported by our friends and various internet portals.

In addition we personally wish to thank Allotment Vegetable Growing.org.uk and FoodRenegade.com for sharing with us all their excellent skills and recipes.
Search this Website
Search Query
Boy Cooking
Image: Boys can be inventive in kitchens! A cordless drill set to hammer action is preferred
Béchamel Related
Image: Croque-Monsieur

Image: Croque-Madame

Image: Croque-Monsieur

Image: Lasagne - adding the cheese bechamel sauce

Image: Barry's Prawn Sauce

Image: Cauliflower Cheese - Click to Enlarge
Descriptions
Image: Wax Gourd - Click for Details

Image: Lao Lin - Click for Details

Image: Ba Choi - Click for Details

Image: Cheung Choi - Click for Details

Image: Choi Sum - Click for Details

Image: Long Gnun - Click for Details

Image: WongPei - Click for Details

Image: WuTao - Click for Details

Image: Chinese Garlic - Click for Details

Image: Chillis - Click for Details

Image: Potatoes - Click for Details
Chinese Recipes
Image: Sik Juk, Congee, or Rice Porridge - Click for Recipe

Image: Dao Gok or Chinese Long Beans - Click for Recipe

Image: Chinese Style Ribs or Pi Gwat - Click for Recipe

Image: Chinese Whitebait or Ham Yue - Click for Recipe

Image: Chinese chicken wings and drumsticks - Click for Recipe

Image: Ba Choi Soup - Click for Recipe
Page Navigation: Top of Page
Link to: www.vidahost.com - Excellent Hosting and Support Services
Please be kind and use the link above when ordering - It costs you the same, and helps me fund this free website, thank you!
Image for Decoration only
    Copyright Webmaster @ ChinaExpats Links