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Fermented milk from Nabadwip, Nadia district, West Bengal

Nabadwip lal doi (red curd of Nabadwip)নবদ্বীপের লাল দই

Milk is boiled down on a wood fire until about three litres become one and the milk reddens, with no colour added. It is poured into clay pots set around the fuel, covered, and left to set into a curd firm enough that a pot can be turned upside down. A knife (chakku) is used to test or cut it.

A short entry: the sources we found record only what is said here about Nabadwip lal doi itself.

Short entryFermented milk2 h – 6 h

Recipe

No fixed amounts recordedSweet-shop practice with no fixed batch size; pots range from about 100 g cups to 5 kg pots.
Milk, pure cow or buffaloThe inventors are said to have used buffalo milk, adding a small amount of water as it boiled[wp]

Total time across the recorded steps: 2 h – 6 h

Start
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What changes: Boiled down over a slow fire, the milk thickens and turns red

Step 1 of 3
Boil the milk down until it turns red
Time
2–6 h
Reported
Temperature
Not documented
Salt
None given
Acidity
Not documented

The boiling continues until the red colour comes. The milk is said to turn red from the long burning. Output: thick red milk.

Flavour
Not documented
Texture
Not documented
Colour
reddish, with no outer colour added

Microbes at work in this step

Not documented for this step.

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

Milk is boiled down on a wood fire until about three litres become one and the milk reddens, with no colour added. It is poured into clay pots set around the fuel, covered, and left to set into a curd firm enough that a pot can be turned upside down. A knife (chakku) is used to test or cut it. Made in 3 steps over 2 h – 6 h. The longest step, boil the milk down until it turns red, takes 2–6 h (Wikipedia 2012).

Key numbers
Main step2–6 hReported[wp]Boil the milk down until it turns red

What makes this one different

Lal doi is red from hours of boiling the milk down, with no colour added, and is much denser than white doi because the milk is boiled to about a third.

Related ferments

Variants

  • Lal gholThe red whey the Ghosh brothers are said to have made from the reddened milk; the source calls their whey-making area Red Ghol or Red Whey.

Safety

The milk is boiled down for two to six hours on a wood fire before it is poured into the pots to set. Wikipedia says the curd can be stored up to ten days.

History and sources

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

The red curd is credited to Kali Ghosh of Phasitala in Nabadwip, or to Kalipada Modak, in 1930. The Ghosh brothers, Kali and Hari, mostly made curd and whey; they boiled buffalo milk gently, with a little water, for a long time, and it turned red. Their whey-making area was known as Red Ghol or Red Whey.

  1. [wp] Wikipedia, Nabadwip-er lal doi (citing Anandabazar 2012-2017, The Telegraph 2017, Ruj 2019)wiki