The Nutty Nectar
Cashew milk
I have mixed feelings about vegan food. On the one hand I dislike the aggressive proselytising that some vegans do, and also the rather dubious 'facts' they use to support their arguments. I think people are entitled to eat what they want, whether vegans or otherwise, and while information is desirable and necessary, the sort that some vegans use seems to belong more to some kind of alternate belief system (calling milking cows a form of sexual molestation, for example).
But I do appreciate the amount of thought and effort that vegans put into their food. They pretty much have to, since removing all animal-based foods from your diet is going to require a fair amount of creativity in finding interesting and varied food to eat. The results can sometimes be stodgy, a perennial problem when you're using lots of starchy foods. And they can be just bizarre and awful, which tends to happen when you try and recreate a non-vegan food; its better to cook something entirely new.
But well prepared vegan food can also be bright and pure-tasting, full of the zing that comes when you must take care sourcing your ingredients, including making some yourself, and then combining them in creative ways. Vegan books and blogs, like the excellent tongueticklers.com from Harini Prakash Balakrishna in Thane, are packed with food information and recipes, and if you disregard the goofier claims, there is often something of interest even to omnivorous eaters like me.
Nut milks are an example of a food that vegans didn't invent, but which they have resurrected and used in delicious ways. We're all familiar with coconut milk, and many still make it themselves, resisting the easy lure of the tetrapaked versions, to grate, soak and squeeze coconuts and extract the creamy thick first milk, and the thinner, but still useful, second milk. Coconut milk is so important to our coastal cuisines that some like Konkani are, without trying, almost vegan in their vegetarian versions.
But just as you make coconut milk, almost any nut can be used to produce 'milk', meaning a whitish liquid that consists of the abundant fats and starches in nuts that are 'washed' out to form a fluid that resembles milk. Such plant milks, as they are generically known, can also be made with grains, like rice milk, or legumes, like soy milk, which is probably the best known such product. But nut milks are the best tasting since nuts have higher levels of fats, which improve the flavour and mouth feel, unlike grain or legume milks, which can seem to taste starchy or leave an unpleasing coating inside your mouth.
Nut milks have been known since ancient times. Almond milk in particular was once a widely used item in Europe and the Middle East. Milk from cows, sheep and goats wasn't always available, since in some seasons the animals went dry, and even when available it often went bad. In such circumstances, when milk was needed for puddings or other dishes, almonds could be soaked, crushed and squeezed. It was expensive, of course, but that added to the prestige of using it, and it features in many recipes from royal kitchens, or those of rich and powerful church officials (who also had to observe regular fasts that didn't allow animal food).
But making nut milks requires a fair amount of effort, at least if you have to do it regularly, and these milks, while pleasant at first sip, tend to have lingering aftertastes that recall their source and can get tiresome. Soy milk has that notorious beany flavour, and walnut milk has an unpleasant bitter edge. Almond milk is clean tasting and faintly nutty, but it is oddly thin in texture and, anyway, is really quite expensive to make. So it's no surprise that as refrigeration made animal milk easily available, nut milk faded out of regular use, other than by traditionalists or culinary historians recreating old recipes.
It was vegans who rediscovered and started using nut milks in large enough quantities that now abroad you can get ready packaged versions. They are also useful for the increasing number of people who are lactose-intolerant. I've never tried them, but a friend who has says they are a bit off-putting since they are packed with preservatives and emulsifiers to keep them liquid. They can be avoided since its easy making them yourself, especially with a mixie. But I never really found a reason for doing so regularly until I tried making milk from cashews.
I did this quite simply because cashews are fairly cheap in India, especially the broken pieces which can be used in baking or as a thickening base in a curry or chutney. I always have a packet around, so it was easy to soak them overnight and zap them in the mixie with some of the soaking water, which had picked up a bit of their sweetish, creamy taste. The thick paste that resulted closely resembled idli-dosabatter and was a bit gunky to use as I pushed it down one of those conical plastic sieves that for some reason I rarely find in shops, but with roadside hawkers of plastic products. I kept pressing and mashing the paste until it became a bit drier and a thick off-white liquid strained out into a jar.
Then I tasted this liquid and almost dropped the jar because it was so incredibly good. It was thick like first pressing coconut milk, with the sweetness of cashews, creamy, but not cloying, which was followed by a great burst of rich, nutty cashew flavour that lingered on my palate in an almost decadent way. I put the leftover cashew mass back in the mixie with more water and got a second pressing (and then even a third) that was thinner, but still nice tasting. This second milk could be used just like regular milk, in tea and coffee, drunk by itself hot or cold. (The leftover cashew mass can be dried and used like a kind of flour).
But it was the first pressing that was exceptional. I made a sweet by mixing date-palm syrup with it, then heating and adding agar-agar (for a vegan friend). It set to a solid yet creamy, superrich yet subtle tasting dessert, the kind that makes you dream of other ways to use the main ingredient. I wondered how ras-malai would taste with the dumplings suspended in cashew milk or a crème-brulée made with from it. Perhaps cashew manufacturers should consider making this as a commercial product? I've since found many recipes from vegans using it, and one has to be grateful for them — but cashew milk is really just too good to left only to the vegans!
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