h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

When I moved out of the UK, I got pretty confused about condensed and evaporated milk. I grew up with Carnation evaporated milk to be poured on a rhubarb crumble or sweetened condensed milk to be turned into caramel.

Now I have to check every label in every supermarket to see what I'm getting. Condensed milk here is just condensed milk with no added sugar, in small handy cartons, usually used for putting in coffee etc but also a stand-by for a lower fat cream sauce etc - so I suppose it is what is marketed in the UK as evaporated milk but is sold here as condensed, you need to search hard here for the sweetened ones which are normally imported.

From what I gather, condensed and evaporated milk are acually the same thing, but most people in the UK associate condensed milk with the thicker, sweetened type in a can.

Now there's a couple of things where a proprietary name has become generic - when I was a kid all evaporated milk was Carnation, even if it wasn't (Carnation), but if it was condensed and sweetened it was Nestles milk. There were other brands of both; Fussell's (condensed) is the only other one I can remember off the top of my bonce.

Why am I suddenly thinking about Lenny Henry...

I must be honest - I never cared for evaporated milk.

And then there's sterry

Evaporated milk always tastes a bit salty to me, and I can just about hack it as a pour over substance for a very very dry but overly sweet sponge pudding. The sort my mother bakes. We used to have it poured over tinned peaches as a quick pudding when we were little kids. I've vague memories of this being served with thin sliced bread and butter, as 'tea'.

And you've reminded me, fresh milk is very expensive in Lanzarote (no grass/no cows) so most milk is UHT. I bought a brand that said "auténtico sabor" (authentic flavour) and was gobsmacked to discover it tasted just like that old-fashioned sterilised milk that came delivered to your door by the milkman. God that was a bad surprise. UHT milk has come a long long way since then.

Lanza, same here in Cyprus - there are a few cows but not enough, so UHT is the way to go unless you need fresh milk 'that' day.

One of the things that made me do a double take when I first saw it here in an Austin supermarket was Bartlett pears... in the fruit and veg section The only way I'd ever seen those was out of a tin, in syrup, and with cream poured over them, for Sunday tea. I'd never seen them fresh before - the only pears I ever recall seeing at a British greengrocer were either Williams, comice or conference.

I've since found out that Bartlett pears are called Williams in the UK, so I was seeing them all the time

oh yes, tinned fruit (usually peaches or pears) with Carnation milk! what a bunch of memories this thread is bringing back.

Here everything is called condensed milk too, it's really confusing. What is the difference in the process that makes what we'd call evaporated milk into the thick gloopy substance tht we'd call condensed milk?

If your tinned milk is actually evaporated and not condensed, then slowly heating it with about 12oz of good grated cheese (red cheeses produce a better colour), tossed in cornflour, and a decent splash of hot sauce, will produce a queso to die for.

B

I might have a crack at that

I, er, still have those two tins of condensed milk

condensed or evaporated? I don't think we ever established that

Convaporated

assuming you mean the thick, goopy, overly sweet stuff: millionaire's shortbread. Or the toffee-bar-biscuit recipe that my uses at

Do you like pumpkin pie? Maryann's recipe calls for sweetened condensed milk, but I suppose the not sweetened variety of condensed milk can be worked in easily.

I do like pumpkin pie as it happens, and I have a small pumpkin in the fridge, but probably too small for a pie. I bought it to make soup with.

The last time I bought condensed milk I left it in the pantry for several years until it turned into dulce de leche all of its own accord

I have a couple of recipes for millionaire's shortbread, and I think there might be some chocolate in the pantry... but I'm a bit low on butter until the next trip to the shops.

Checking back on the date of the first posting in this conversation - I've had these ones almost a year

I thought of you today, and this thread which I saw pop-up yesterday, at my lunch 'do' - cos the dessert involved condensed milk.

It was a local dish, made up of gofio, leche condensada and cream. Plus some citrus zest and maybe a bit of cinnamon. Sort of runny and caramel-coloured. It was served with tiny fingers of turron.


Gofio is a Canarian cereal product made by roasting and grinding maize. I can't really describe it. In the packet its a pale straw-coloured powder. But it tastes sort of comforting.

Is it a bit like polenta?

No, it's more like unsweetened baby food. It's already been cooked, so it goes thick when you add water. Here's an image:
http://tinyurl.com/kkeqkg6


There's another product which is a bit like polenta, it's a white type of cooked maize called 'Pan' Here's an image of Pan - I buy it solely so I can wear my hair like the lady on the packet. We get it with Spanish words but it is the same design.
http://www.cubanfoodmarket.com/mm5/graphics/00000001/white-impcorn.jpg


(sorry for hijacking your thread Gosho)

Hijack away

If there's a Mexican equivalent of gofio (because there's a fair amount of maize in the cuisine around these parts, and south of the border), BG will probably be able to point us in the right direction.