INDIGENOUS MILK PRODUCTS/ SWEETS-Dairy Engineering-Technical Superintendent Milk Marketing Federation Ltd

INDIGENOUS MILK PRODUCTS/ SWEETS-Dairy Engineering-Technical Superintendent Milk Marketing Federation ltd

Milk plays a significant role as a source of animal protein in the average Indian diet which is predominantly vegetarian.

Because of higher ambient temperatures prevailing in Indian sub-continent, ancient Indians developed more stable products from milk for conservation of its nutritional goodness.

So the ethnic dairy foods commonly termed as traditional or Indian indigenous milk products, were developed over ages utilizing locally available equipment, utensils and manufacturing procedures.

The term Indian dairy products refers to those milk products which originated in undivided India.

The importance of milk and milk products in this country has been recognized since Vedic times.

Indigenous Milk Products/ Sweets

Traditional Indian dairy products or Indian Indigenous milk products can be defined as all milk products which are native of India and which were evolved over ages utilizing locally available fuels and cooking ware.

The term Indian dairy products refers to those milk products which originated in undivided India.

CLASSIFICATION OF INDIGENEOUS DAIRY PRODUCTS

Indian indigenous milk products have different nomenclature in various regions because of the variation in the ingredients added and method of manufacture involved.

For better understanding of the nature of the products, indigenous milk products can be conveniently classified into nine major categories.

1. Concentrated / partially desiccated products:

In this class of products, milk is concentrated using heat energy. Moisture percent in milk gets reduced due to evaporation of vapours of the product.

Based on extent of heat treatment product characteristics such as smell, colour, aroma and texture imparted to the products .

i) Khoa and Khoa based sweets such asGulabjamun, Burfi, Kalakand , Milk

cake etc.

ii) Rabri

iii) Basundi

2. Heat and acid coagulated products:

These are the coagulated products obtained upon addition of acidulant(s) to heated milk.

Extent of removal of moisture controls the texture.

i) Chhana and Chhana based sweets such as Rasagolla, Rasamalai,

Sandesh etc.

ii) Paneer.

3. Fermented products:

Lactic cultures are used to ferment the milk at specific temperature and for specific duration.

Dahi is the well-known product since from ancient time and mistidahi is popular in eastern region.

i) Dahi

ii) Mistidahi

iii) Chakka

iv) Shrikhand

v) Shrikhand wadi

4. Fat rich products:

i) Ghee

ii) Makkhan (desi butter)

iii) Malai

5. Frozen products:

i) Kulfi

ii) Malai – ka – baraf

iii) Milk-ice

6. Cereal based puddings:

i) Kheer

ii) Payasam

7. Chhana and khoa based sweets

i) Kala-Jamun

ii) Pantooa

CONCEPT: Khoa and khoa based sweets – peda, Gulabjamun, kalakand, burfimethod of preparation.

KHOA

Khoa is the product obtained by drying of cow or buffalo or goat or sheep milk or milk solids or a combination thereof. The milk fat content should not be less than 20% of the finished product.

Khoa is a semi solid mass having more intence shade colour with a tinge brown colour.

It is obtained by continuous heating in a karahi over a direct fire kettle or in a steam.

Depending on the method of preparation, three varieties of khoa are

available-Pindi, dhap and danedar.

These varieties differ in composition and texture and are made use of preparing different sweets.

Khoa is a concentrated whole milk product obtained by open pan condensing of milk under atmospheric pressure.

According to Food Safety and Standard Regulations 2011, Khoya, by whatever variety of names it is sold such as Pindi, Danedar, Dhap, Mawa or Kava, means the product obtained from cow or buffalo or goat or sheep milk or milk solids or a combination thereof by rapid drying.

The milk fat content shall not be less than 30 percent on dry weight basis of finished product.

It may contain citric acid not more than 0.1 percent by weight.

It shall be free from added starch, added sugar and added colouring matter.

Good quality khoa should be a compact mass of very small uniformly-sized granules,which shows no signs of fat and/or

waterleakage.

Even if kept for over 24 hours ,it should not taste gritty.

KHOA BASED SWEETS :

PEDA

Peda is popular khoa sweet which contains mainly khoa, sugar, dry fruits, and

cardamom.

BURFI

Burfi is a unique adaptability of khoa in terms of its flavour , body and texture to blend with a wide range of food adjuncts has permitted development of an impressive array of burfi varieties.

Burfi is one of the most popular khoa based indigenous sweets. It is white to light cream in colour with firm body and smooth texture with very fine grains.

Sugar is added in different proportions and other ingredients incorporated according to the demand of consumers.

Method of Production

Buffalo milk is preferred for making burfi.

Milk used for burfi should not have objectionable flavours and titratable acidity should not be more than 0.16 percent.

Milk is filtered before use to remove visible objectionable foreign matter.

Standardized buffalo milk with 6% fat and 9% SNF in quantities of 4-5 lit per batch is taken in a double jacketed stainless steel kettle and heated.

Milk is boiled continuously with constant stirring and scraping so as to avoid burning of solids on the surface of the kettle.

When a semisolid consistency is attained, heating is discontinued. Powdered sugar @ 30% on the basis of khoa (7% on milk basis) is added and blended thoroughly into khoa with the help of a flattened wooden ladle.

When a homogeneous mass with desirable flow characteristics is achieved, the blend is transferred to greased trays.

The product is allowed to set for minimum of 4 hours. Then burfiis cut into desirable shapes and sizes with a knife and packed burfi is stored at room temperature.

KALAKAND

Kalakand is a milk sweet basically prepared from Danedar variety of khoa. Kalakand is characterized by large sized hard grains with less cohesive body.

The chemical composition of Kalakand is more or less similar to burfi, but there are large differences in the sensory and rheological properties of the two sweets.

Contrary to burfi, kalakand has more distinct cooked flavour and brown colour.

The body of kalakand is greasier with grainy texture. The grains are hard and of large size.

Good quality kalakand is normally prepared in one step from buffalo milk.

However, it can also be prepared from khoa. The firmly set product is cut to required shape and size.

When making kalakand from khoa, danedar variety is used.

Preparation of kalakand

Buffalo milk is preferred for kalakand manufacture. Slightly sour milk (upto 0.18% lactic acid) can be used for its preparation. Buffalo milk standardized to 6% fat and 9% SNF is taken in a pan and boiled. At the appearance of first boiling, 0.05% citric acid (on weight of milk) dissolved in small quantity of water is added to milk.

There is no need to add citric acid in case of slightly acidic milk. The milk is boiled with continuous stirring and scraping.

At pat formation stage, sugar @ 30% on expected yield of khoa or alternatively 7.5% on the basis of milk is added and stirring is continued.

When desirable textural and body characteristics are achieved,

mixture is removed from fire and poured in a tray, smeared with a thin layer of ghee for setting.

The kalakand is cut into desirable shapes or alternatively served as such

GULABJAMUN

Gulabjamun is a khoa based sweet popular all over India. Dhap variety of khoa having 40-45% moisture is preferred for Gulabjamun preparation.

There are large variations in the sensory quality of Gulabjamun. The most liked product should have brown colour, smooth and spherical shape, soft and slightly spongy body, free from both lumps and hard central core, uniform granular texture, with cooked flavour and free from doughy feel and the sweet should be fully succulent with sugar syrup with optimum sweetness

Requirements for sugar syrup

The sugar syrup shall be clear and light to golden yellow in colour, and shall conform to the requirements given in the table as follows.

The proportion of free syrup in a gulabjamun pack shall not exceed 60% of the declared net mass.

There should not be excessive free fat floating in the syrup or adhering to gulabjamun pieces.

The package should not also contain broken pieces of gulabJamuns in the syrup.

Method of Preparation

Dhap variety of khoa, maida and baking powder (750 g khoa, 250 g maida and 5 g baking powder) are blended to form homogenous and smooth dough.

Small amount of water can be added in case of hard dough and if it does not roll into smooth balls.

The mix should be prepared fresh every time. The balls are then deep fat fried at 140° C to golden brown colour and transferred into 60% sugar syrup maintained at 60 ° C.

It takes about 2 hours for the balls to completely absorb sugar syrup.

CHHANA

According to FSSAI, Chhana or paneer means the product obtained from the cow or buffalo milk or a combination thereof byprecipitation with sour milk, lactic acid or citric acid. It shall not contain more than 70.0 per cent moisture and the milkfat content shall not be less than 50.0 per cent of the dry matter.

Milk solids may also be used in the preparation of this product.Provided that paneer or chhana when sold as low fat paneer or chhana, it shall conform to the following requirements

(i) Moisture – Not more than 70.0 percent

(ii) Milk fat – Not more than 15.0 percent of dry matter:

Chhana is an acid coagulated product obtained from milk. The curd mass obtained when milk is coagulated with the organic acids such as citric acid, lactic acid at higher temperature and after subsequent drainage of whey, mass of curd obtained is called chhana.

It looks off-white, tastes mildly acidic, and has characteristic spongy texture.

Chhana is mainly prepared from cow milk and used for preparation of varieties of Bengali sweets.

About 4 to 4.5% of the total milk produced in India is used for chhanamaking. Chhana is used as a base for the preparation of a variety of sweets like sandesh, rasogolla, chamcham, rasomalai, pantoa, chhanamurki, etc.

RASOGOLLA

Rasogolla popularly known as king of Bengal sweets. Product was developed by Nobin Chandra Das in 1868.

Production is largely confined to cottage and small scale industry. K. C. Das used to be a brand name for rasogolla in past.

Rasogolla resembles ping-pong ball in shape, snow-white in colour and possesses a spongy, slightly chewy body and juicy and smooth texture.

Rasogolla balls are stored and served in sugar syrup. The product is flavoured with kewara, pista and rose and sometimes centered with cardamom or pista.

PANEER

Paneer is a heat-acid coagulated milk product obtained by coagulating standardized milk with the permitted acids at specified temperature.

The resultant coagulum is filtered and pressed to get the sliceable curd mass.

Paneer has a firm, close, cohesive and spongy body and smooth texture.

It is mainly prepared from buffalo milk and used for large number of culinary dishes.

Though originally it was localized in Northern part of India but now it is preferred almost all parts of the country.Paneer is generally sold as blocks or slices, it is also referred as Indian fresh cheese.

It is reported that about 5% of the milk produced in India is converted into paneerandpaneer production is growing annually PANTOOA

This is a chhana and khoa based product similar to gulabjamun. Equal quantity ofkhoa and chhana are broken into small bits.

Maida and baking powder are also used in this product for obtaining smooth texture and soft body.

After mixing maida and baking powder, broken bits of chhana and khoa are added into it. Small quantity of water is added to knead the above mixture and to form dough.

From here onwards proceed similar to gulabjamun processing, i.e making balls and frying them in ghee or in oil, followed by dipping in sugar syrup. It has shelf life of 7 days at room temperature and 14 days at refrigerated temperature where as canned product can

keep upto 6 months.