Yogurt And Mint Sauce

[jadyn]

The yogurt and mint sauce I bought recently contains no flakes of mint in the white liquid. It's viscous just like the one I buy from the Indian takeaway. How do they make this stuff? The ingredients list on the bottle are no help.
Ta

[bookbinder]

https://www.recipetips.com/recipe-cards/t--2641/yogurt-mint-sauce.asp

[MargoTester]

https://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/raita

Recipe here

[Maydup]

They probably use mint extract. Its clear and a few drops in the yoghurt would give a strong flavour. Buy some form a supermarket and you could make your own sauce.

[theprof]

Hmm, it's not made from either of those recipes as the green colour of the mint would impart at least a tinge of green to the sauce and/or the mint leaves would remain visible. There would be no reason for declaring mint as an ingredient. I doubt it's mint extract as there would be no reason for not declaring it on the packaging in the form of "contains natural flavouring" etc. So what are we left with?

The chances are that the yogurt has been mixed with, wait for it, N-Ethyl-2-isopropyl-5-methylcyclohexanecarboxamide. This substance is one of a group of chemicals called methane monoterpinoids that are used in the food industry as flavouring. Many, including this one, are generally regarded as safe for human consumption. This particular one is ideal for use in mint and yogurt sauce as it has minty smell and a cooling effect in the mouth when used on curries etc. due to clever chemical reaction when it touches the tongue. It's a white powder that wouldn't colour the yogurt in any way and it's cheap.
I'd stick to the type where you can see the mint particles if I were you but as I said, it does the job.

[Vagus]

I buy Coleman’s mont sauce, and mix it with natural yogurt if I want to make something similar to raitia, very successful.

[theprof]

Misprint there. I should have said that these compounds are menthane monoterpenoids. The spell checker gremlins have changed my menthane to methane and the other was due to it having been a long day at the lab!

[Vagus]

Hey prof, how’s it going? Have thing calmed down for you now things have generally calmed down a bit or are you still at full throttle??
Really appreciated the time you spent explaining stuff on AB when we were all very uncertain about everything COVID.

[theprof]

Thanks for asking Vagus. Things have calmed down a little thanks to some changes we've made in the labs since we began work on Covid, but I'm almost as busy now as I was when I started! I've spent four days in the research facility this week which isn't bad considering I was there seven days a week at the height of the pandemic. I'm beginning to get the hang of Microsoft Teams at long last for the rest of the time.

I'm working on some sub-variants of the original Omicron right now which are showing some really novel features. Their significance remains to be seen but I'll know better by the end of next week by the look of it.

I'm glad I've helped you understand some of what's been going on with Covid and your comment makes it all worthwhile!
I only wish that some of the politicians I've spoken to along the way were equally receptive!