How to prevent yogurt from curdling when making curries?
Yogurt is a major ingredient in making Indian Curries. The cow-milk yogurt will separate when heated beyond a given point, unless it is stabilized. In the olden days, yogurt for cooking was made from freshly drawn buffalo whole-milk. It did not curdle with heat. Technically, foods high in proteins and acids (yogurt has lactic acid), become unstable with high heat. Higher the butter fat, proportionately lower is the amount of protein, that is the case with buffalo-milk yogurt. You may choose to add Cow-milk yogurt at the end of cooking to minimize effects of high heat. The only problem is that spice flavors will not fully permeate the yogurt. You can stabilize cow-milk yogurt by stirring-in a starch to the yogurt before cooking. For starch, you can use any flour: Besan (Chickpea flour), Atta (whole-grain wheat flour), Maida (All-purpose flour) or Cornstarch. Cornstarch is flavor neutral.
