Greek Yoghurt (Leban)

Yoghurt (Leban)

    
Rawbi is a starter for making leban or yoghurt. It is borrowed from a neighbor or friend in the Middle East as frequently as a cup of sugar is borrowed from a next door neighbor in the West.  You can make yoghurt from commercial plain Greek yoghurt, but it will be sweeter than using the rawbi from yoghurt made at home.

Ingredients
1 gallon whole milk
2 tablespoons plain Greek yoghurt
cheese cloth                                                  

Directions

Pour milk in a heavy pan and heat on low fire until it comes to a      
very low boil. It looks like a skin on top, that gently rolls like a
lake in the breeze and you will notice tiny bubbles forming under
the skin. Have greek starter yoghurt at room temperature in a
small bowl.

Turn the heat off.

Run hot water over a ceramic or glass bowl to warm it up. Dry bowl.

Pour heated milk into bowl and cool to 115 degrees F. (or when the little finger can be immersed in the milk to the count of ten. Fingers have different toleration levels, so using a thermometer is more reliable. It works at a temperature no lower than 115 degrees and no higher than 120 degrees)

Return to the bowl of yoghurt, if you notice some excess liquid, absorb it with a paper towel first.

Remove the skin from the top of the milk with a large spoon and mix
with the yoghurt starter, then add another two tablespoons of the hot
milk. Stir with a slotted spoon. Pour all the yoghurt mixture into the
pan of hot milk and stir a few times.

Cover pan with silver foil and a towel, it helps to wrap a blanket around the pan also to keep it warm.

Let stand overnight or for eight hours. Do not disturb the yoghurt during this time! Don’t move it.

Next day, remove towel, blanket, silver foil and place cheese cloth over entire surface. The cheese cloth will absorb the liquid (whey) and should be rinsed out and squeezed dry daily, then recover the yoghurt with cheese cloth. Over time, the yoghurt becomes thicker, it will be ready to eat after two days. Eventually the yoghurt will be a consistency of cream cheese (labne). This is good to start another batch of yoghurt.

If the yoghurt does not congeal after standing overnight or you forgot about it while cooling down, you can warm the covered bowl over hot water for 45-60 minutes.