Plain Yogurt: Vintage 2008

Last night I reached a new high (or low) in expired food consumption. I never thought it would be possible, and I certainly do not recommend this to others. Eating expired canned food is not that big a deal, but expired dairy is a whole other level of potential disaster. Luckily, my nose has not failed me yet.

I have had this tub of yogurt in my fridge since December 2008. I kept it because it hadn’t been opened yet. Gradually, time passed and the thought of opening it grew increasingly scary, so I left it in the fridge. Most people would have thrown it away, but I avoid confrontation, so I let it sit in the fridge even though I told myself I couldn’t possibly eat it. Then two days ago I decided that it was time to throw it away– fridge space is dwindling again and I’ve been resorting to stacking and stuffing things on the top shelf and closing the door quickly to contain any possible overflow.

One internet source suggested that yogurt would change colour if it had gone bad. I opened the foil and the yogurt was still white, and only a bit watery and it smelled like yogurt! I was shocked and immediately decided not to throw it away. Why would I throw away perfectly fine yogurt? It did smell a little bit sharper than it maybe should have, but in the grand scheme of things, it was in fine condition. I stuck it back in the fridge and thought about what to do with it.

I decided on a chicken curry-type dish. I’ve only recently started making curries and I haven’t made a chicken one in a while and I found two recipes that use yogurt, a butter chicken recipe and a simple chicken curry recipe, so I blended the two and made a sort of watery, tasty, but not super-tasty chicken curry. It’s pretty good, I would make it again, but it’s not so delicious that I can’t resist it. I didn’t add any butter or too much oil, but I did leave all the chicken fat and skin on, so that added some fat. I think it would be even better with cream and butter, but I don’t need those right now since I still can’t fit into my summer pants after a meal. I also think it needs some other flavour, but I’m not good at figuring out what that is. I just know it’s missing something.

I have enough yogurt left to make two or three more dishes. I think the next one I will try uses the yogurt as a marinade overnight along with some spices. I actually wanted to make that one first, but I was hungry last night and wanted to eat something within a couple of hours.