Just like coffee and tea, I need you regularly

[venta]

A friend of mine does PR for Yeo Valley, who make yoghurts. Or maybe she does blogging and copywriting for them. Or some form of other freelance stuff. Actually, I concede, I have no idea what it is she actually does for them. The net result, as far as I'm concerned, is that she sporadically wants me to go to her house and eat yoghurt and have opinions about it.

As a big fan of both yoghurt and having opinions, I quite enjoy it.

So, yesterday she made me close my eyes and eat various yoghurts. Which I did (having been assured that none of them were anchovy and hedgehog flavour). Then she pointed out she had 16 giant tubs of the stuff, including duplicates, and a husband who doesn't eat yoghurt, and would I please take some of the stuff away.

So I did. And can I just say that Yeo Valley Greek-style lemon and ginger yoghurt is The Business? It's extremely creamy, it's lemony (almost lemon curdy), and very, very slightly gingery. I've just had a bowl of it for breakfast, with granola[*], and I'm now contemplating second breakfast.

Or early lunch. Or something. It's a "limited edition" yoghurt, whatever the blithering Margaret that means, so I don't know how easy it'll be to track down in the shops. But I'd really recommend making the effort.

(No one is paying me to say this, by the way, it really is very nice.)

[*] all right, it wasn't granola at all, it was Co-Op muesli, but I sprinkled it on top of the yog in a very cool and California kind of way.

Comments

[beckyc.livejournal.com]

Mmmmmmmmmm greek style lemon and ginger yoghurt sounds gorgeous.

I'm now wondering if I could DIY something similar with soy yoghurt or if it would curdle.

[venta.livejournal.com]

I'm not an expert in the handling of soy yoghurt, but to get something that tasted the same I reckon you'd want to use lemon curd, not actual lemons. The Yeo Valley stuff is actually quite sweet and puddingy. Can one acquire/make dairy-free lemon curd? If not, even something like lemon marmelade might have the right effect.

I'm a big fan of ginger, but even I think it might be easy to over-ginger this. I reckon grate ginger and squeeze the juice into the yoghurt. (That wouldn't curdle dairy yoghurt, I assume it'd be fine with soy.)

[pseudomonas.livejournal.com]

One can make dairy-free lemon curd, yes, by using a hard vegetable fat in place of butter.

[venta.livejournal.com]

Clearly one could :)

I just wasn't sure whether the resulting thing would be nice to eat. Have you tried?

[pseudomonas.livejournal.com]

I'm pretty sure I've had lemon curd made with margarine rather than butter, and I don't remember it being awful.

[venta.livejournal.com]

Aha, thank you. In that case I shall add it to the list of things I can put in cakes made for my dairy-free friends :)

[beckyc.livejournal.com]

Can one acquire/make dairy-free lemon curd?

It has been a while, but I think it's possible. Egg free would be harder.

[venta.livejournal.com]

Yes, I think egg-free would be pretty doomed. I've actually never tried cooking with the egg-free-replacement-egg-powder-food-substitute-product you can buy, but I fear it. And certainly for lemon curd I can't imagine it working.

(Any passing vegans/egg-freers are invited to set me straight...)

[phlebas.livejournal.com]

There are quite a few recipes for vegan lemon curd online - most seem to use cornflour and coconut milk rather than egg-substitute-product. One uses almond milk, which I've never heard of but sounds quite special. (NB I have never tasted these things - it's possible only hardened vegans would enjoy them)