How to Make Ghee

I have seen my grandma make ghee from butter. But my mom never did it, for her if anything is readily available in the store why waste my time on that.  Here in US, ghee cost about triple the price than what we get for in India. So my hubby told me don’t worry about ghee you can simply skip that. 

But smell and taste of ghee is so intoxicating that I can’t leave that one out from my pantry. So I decided to make it at home. I like to use unsalted butter.  Since the fat content is less in the butter here, ghee will be slightly mellow in the taste.  May be next time I will try European style butter. 

Ghee can be consider as brother of clarified butter as when you initially heat butter you will get browned butter or clarified butter. Then upon slightly more cooking you can get ghee. Ghee is mainly fat, all the moisture is removed and milk solids are caramelized/browned and will settle down while cooking and is strained out. The final product gives a rich nutty taste. Ghee has a longer shelf life, both at refrigerated and at room temperature. At room temperature it will be grainy liquid and if refrigerated it is hard. Make sure to use a thick spoon while taking the ghee out. 

Ghee and Indians have long relationship, we use it in our cooking, medicine ( Ayurvedic medicine) religious rituals ( worshiping God, marriage, death and all) and everywhere.  We even feed our young babies with mashed rice and little bit of ghee. Yes it is true my no-tooth prince likes it. 

Ghee has high cooking temperature than any other oil, so feel free to heat them. While making ghee one thing you need to make sure that there should be no water near, in pan, strainer, and bottle/jar. Don’t stir  while making ghee.  As even tiniest water drops can spoil the ghee by causing bacteria to grow in them. 

Once you have made the ghee, you can make almost all Indian sweets, ghee rice, biriyani, biscuits you name it; and curries like Paneer Makhani, Kofta curry, even ghee roasted potatoes yumm. 

If you are in hurry, don’t try to make Ghee, you are going to waste your time and money. I did that; I was juggling two dishes and making ghee on stovetop and ended up with burned ghee. So take your time and use medium-low flame to make ghee. Within 28 minutes you will get fully aromatic ghee. 

First grab  1 lb of unsalted butter.

Then  gradually heat the butter in  a thick bottom  sauce pan  until it melted and white foam develop in the top.

Continue to heat the butter in  medium low flame resulting formations of bubbles and later  bubbles breaks out.Milk soilid gradually settle in bottom of the pan.  Remove the ghee from the fire when you golden brown color sediment in the bottom of pan.  Set aside for cooling for some time, then strain the ghee using a  metal strainer . 

Enjoy the  Ghee and start making delicious dish with it. 

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Ghee by Swathi  @ Zesty South Indian Kitchen Preparation time: 1 minutes Cook time: 25-30 minutes Serves:1 ½ Cup Ingredients        1  lb stick butter           Directions Heat butter in thick bottomed saucepan. Use  low heat while butter is melting and  increase to medium low. As  butter  melts you will see lot of  foam  developing in the top at first then bubbles starts to form around 10 minutes of cooking You will hear noise while bubbles are forming. Bubbles starts to breaks out  it will continue for about  another 6 minutes. Then milk solids starts  settling in the bottom and you will see golden color of ghee along with brownish  substances sticking in bottom of pan. It will take  about another 9 minutes. Nice aroma  ghee will be coming at that time. Remove the ghee from the fire immediately. Otherwise it will continue to cook resulting  burnt ghee. Once ghee is slightly cooled down. strain it using a stainless strainer to remove the milk solids. You can store ghee in room temperature then it will grainy liquid. If you refrigerate it will be hard. I like to store at room temperature. Enjoy as much you wish. Variations You can add some cumin seeds, fenugreek seeds, curry leaves or betel leaves,  little salt  while making ghee.

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