To “Stabilize” Yogurt for Cooking

Many Middle Eastern dishes call for yogurt as a cooking liquid or sauce which needs to be cooked—boiled or simmered—rather than just heated. Salted goat’s milk yogurt, which was used in similar recipes in olden times, can be cooked without curdling, which explains why medieval recipes do not give any indication of ways of preventing yogurt from curdling. Cooking, however, causes yogurt made with cow’s milk to curdle, and stabilizers such as cornstarch or egg white are required to prevent this.