BWW Cooks: That Milk on the Shelf - Why to Love Evaporated Milk

After a long break, it's good to be back in my kitchen cooking again, and it's time to revisit my pantry. Today I'm looking at cans. Yes, cans; even the greatest chefs have a tinned item or two in their cupboards.

Milk. America loves it. Vegetarians who'd love to become vegans reveal frequently that dairy products are the reason they can't make the change to no animal products at all. We love our cows and our goats. But in this day of "raw or pasteurized" and "I found a dairy that doesn't homogenize, so I can skim off the cream myself!" some old dairy staples are too déclassé to discuss. On the other hand, they're useful, wonderful pantry staples, still used in many recipes your mother and grandmother cooked and baked, and that you still love. They're evaporated milk and condensed milk, the allegedly unrefined cousins of small artisanal dairy. And they're still your best friends.

I keep several cans of evaporated milk in my pantry at all times. I don't drink milk, but use cream in my beverages, and I use almond milk on my cereals, preferring the taste, so if I need milk in a recipe, using canned milk makes sense for me. And it works. There also are many times it works better than the carton or glass bottle of milk. But what, and why, is shelf-stable canned milk?

Basic evaporated milk is milk with over half of its water removed, and then tinned, invented in 1885 (sweetened condensed milk had already been invented, but there was a desire to preserve milk without adding sugar to it). It concentrates a quantity of milk in a smaller space, and can be reconstituted with water to regular milk. Its shelf life is months and even years, which made it convenient to ship and to store in places where fresh milk was not available, as well as storing easily in small areas and without refrigeration.

Available in whole milk or fat free versions, it is popular in both Europe and South America in coffee and in tea - it's richer and more intensely flavored than regular milk (and may be slightly sweet due to the higher concentration of lactose, or milk sugar), and has less fat and higher protein than cream. If your grandmother put evaporated milk in her coffee, she wasn't merely being cheap or remembering the days of the icebox. She knew what tasted good - grandmothers always do, don't they?

In Latin America, evaporated milk and the thicker, sweetened condensed milk are used widely in dessert cooking and in caramel-making - think dulce de leche, which depends on them, or of tres leches cake. Many home bakers use evaporated milk in such things as scones, rather than using cream, to reduce fat while maintaining moistness and flavor, as well as crumb. And Alton Brown, the cooking show maven, recommends evaporated milk in place of milk and flour (béchamel sauce) in making a creamy macaroni and cheese - a trick that, notoriously, works perfectly for almost everyone who tries it.

If you're about saving fat and calories, evaporated milk can be whipped in place of cream. Chill one cup of evaporated milk in a metal mixer bowl, along with the metal beaters in your freezer for 30 minutes. Whip with vanilla and up to half a cup of sifted powdered sugar. Beat for two minutes. This should yield four cups of dairy whipped topping to be used immediately.

If you're making a sauce and want to reduce fat, substitute evaporated milk for cream. Or do it if you forgot to buy the cream and you don't want to run back to the store. Whisk in one tablespoon of flour, and don't let the sauce boil.

For other cream based recipes, substitute evaporated milk cup-for-cup for cream. Again, it's the easy and delicious fix when you've forgotten cream or have run short of it. The thickness and creaminess of the evaporated milk make it the prime substitute for cream.

You may be familiar with recipes for custards, including dulce de leche, that call for evaporated milk. Its use as a base for custard explains immediately why it's also a more-than-satisfactory base for ice cream. Just, please, skip the fat-free evaporated milk here. There's no point to making ice cream and taking out all the fun and the flavor. (With food, as with perfume, you're always better off enjoying just a little of the good stuff than a lot of a feeble substitute.) New England ice cream is almost taffy-like; it's thick, rich, and literally chewy, and can be made at home with evaporated milk. A great article on New England ice cream, with recipes, is here at Serious Eats. Additionally, there's a great recipe for no-ice-cream-churn ice cream with evaporated milk and only two other ingredients at Uncle Jerry's Kitchen. It's just the thing for you and the kids on a hot summer day. For sweetened condensed milk no-custard ice cream recipes, check out SOUTHERN LIVING here.

And as the weather changes over to fall, and Thanksgiving approaches, evaporated milk is part of the custard base of almost every major traditional pumpkin pie recipe. We hope you bought canned pumpkin last year for this season; as I warned, I'm hearing reports of regional canned pumpkin shortages this year. If you've got your pumpkin, though, the classic Libby's pumpkin pie recipe can be found here. It's been around for over 45 years now, probably the most popular pumpkin pie recipe ever baked. A classic Thanksgiving side dish beloved of Yankees and Southerners alike is baked corn, which usually is also made with evaporated milk. If your recipe calls for regular milk, try evaporated milk in the same quantity instead. At Pennsylvania Dutch tables you might also find stewed dried corn - Cope's is the easiest brand of Pennsylvania dried corn to obtain - made with evaporated milk at Thanksgiving. A common Pennsylvania Dutch recipe is at Teri's Kitchen.

Evaporated milk is at the heart of a large number of Indian and Pakistani desserts, quite relevant during the current celebration of Diwali. If the weather's still warm where you are, enjoy this double tinned-milk-base mango kulfi for the holiday, recipe here. Evaporated milk also works well in recipes for traditional carrot halwa.

Evaporated milk isn't an ingredient to hide for being non-artisan. It's a cook's best friend in many recipes, a low-fat cream replacement for deliciously rich foods, and it won't spoil on you by surprise just before you're ready to use it. There's almost no regular-milk-based recipe in which it won't work, and it will do wonderful things to your coffee and tea without the chemicals of powdered creamer or the high price of flavored rich creamer. Use condensed milk instead and you're enjoying Asian hot or iced beverages. Keep a few cans in the pantry, and you'll never be caught short on one of the best staple ingredients in your arsenal.

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