Buttermilk Poaching: The troubles and the solution

Buttermilk is the secret unsung star of our kitchen.  It provides acidity, it is a tenderizer, it adds richness, it is inexpensive and it tastes really good.  We use it in dressings and marinades, scones and bisquits, ice cream and as a poaching medium.  While buttermilk acts as an incredible poaching medium and an equally good carrier of flavors it is not clean.  Even when we moniter temperatures, the buttermilk has a tendency to coagulate and fill in nooks and crevises in poultry or other protiens we choose to poach in it.  Because of this inherrent flaw, we have strayed away from using buttermilk to cook in.  However, today through another one of my many misteps, a solution became apparent.  I am still trying to coat fish and cook it in yogurt.  Today, I got closer being able to wrap the fish in the yogurt and basically cooking it in a yogurt bag.  Yogurt, like buttermilk has many great culinary attributes and these were carried into the fish; though aesthetically I could not serve the fish in the yogurt.  Yet, the yogurt tenderized and sealed all the flavor into the fish and easily pulled away leaving no visual trace of the yogurt.  With these positive results I plan to apply the same technique with buttermilk; allowing for a mud bath cooking envirionment which is easily removed.