Milk is considered a wholesome food and its nutritional values are beyond anything else. In order to commemorate this, World Milk Day is celebrated on the 1st of June every year since 2001. The Food and Agricultural Organisation of the United Nations started this to recognize Milk as a Global Food. This year sees the 21st anniversary of the event with the theme Sustainability in the dairy sector with messages around the environment, nutrition, and socio-economics.
Being the largest producer of milk, this year’s World Milk Day theme is suited for India. So on the occasion of World Milk Day, team Discover East brings to you a few unique dairy products from India.
Dairy Products from India
- Ghee : Also called clarified butter, ghee is an essential ingredient of Indian cooking. It is also an inseparable part of most Hindu religious functions.
- Buttermilk : Buttermilk is one of the traditional Indian coolers. It is popular mainly in the Southern and Western states of India. Indians often mix buttermilk with mixing salt and few spices .
- Raita : This is a condiment served with a variety of Indian dishes like biryani. And Indians make by adding chopped vegetables like onions and cucumbers with spices and salt to sour curd.
- Sweetened Curd : Curd is normally sour, but what of we can make it sweet in taste ? Well that is exactly what a lot of Bengali people prefer!
- Paneer : Cottage Cheese is both easy to make and easy to cook. Making it one of the favorite sources of proteins for the vegetarian Indians. Compared to the other varieties of cheese, paneer maintains its consistency even when heated or cooked, making it different from the rest.
- Chhurpi : It is a type of dehydrated cheese, popular in the cold regions of the country like Sikkim and Arunachal Pradesh. Often made from Yak milk, people can preserve it for a long time in beads or sticks.
- Khoa : Reduction of milk to expel most of the water content makes khoa. It serves as both a side dish or a raw material for deserts.
These were some of the unique dairy products from across India. Indians also make a wide variety of desserts made from one or more of the above products. You can also read about the benefits of milk in this writeup.
(Feature image source: Exportersindia)
