Ghee
(Clarified Butter)
1 pound best quality unsalted butter
Melt a pound of butter at medium low heat.

When the butter boils, it will make a distinctive gurgling, crackling sound as the water cooks away. A foam will form on the top, and milk solids settle to the bottom and brown. Don't jostle the pan!

In half an hour to forty five minutes, depending on the quality of the butter, the ghee will be done. (Store brand butter takes longer to cook and yields noticeably less ghee...how much water can they get in there, anyway?). The solids will have settled (or risen) and the center will be a clear, rich golden color.

Strain the oil carefully through a coffee filter. If any fleck of milk solids gets into the jar, filter it again. And be careful about putting wet utensils into the final product - moisture makes it liable to spoilage. It will cool to a soft, pale yellow semi-solid.

Skimmed-off milk solids can be used to flavor vegetables. Though I don't care for the taste myself, the solids are where the proteins and other nutrients are (though ghee has significant vitamins).

Properly prepared ghee will keep for months at room temperature in an open container.

 
 

I love this stuff. It isn't quite as rich as butter, but it has a lovely flavor, it can be heated very hot without burning or smoking, and it keeps forever at room temperature (or warmer - I keep mine handy in a jar on the back of the stove). It's a perfect frying oil. And it's pretty.

Ghee figures very prominently in Indian life — in cooking, in Ayurvedic medicine and in Hindu ritual. Most ghee is made from buffalo butter, but only that made from cow's butter has religious or medical use. It's sometimes called the royal oil.

You can easily see why ghee seemed so significant to the ancients. We mammals are sentimental about milk. And to make ghee, skim off the very richest cream from the milking. Then churn the cream into butter. Then cook the butter into ghee. By hand, this would have been damned hard work, and time consuming. At each stage it grows smaller and smaller, and closer and closer to its essence, changing from thick, white and opaque to thin, gold and translucent.

Now, that's alchemy!

 

When steak goes silent

Listening to ghee is one of the best ways to figure out how it's doing. That crackly sound is water cooking out of the oil, and it quiets down as it gets closer to the finish.

In fact, that hissing and crackling in cooking is always moisture escaping. You can put a brick in a deep fryer and not get a peep out of it, but a drop of water makes it sing.

That's worth remembering when you're trying to cook the water out of something, as with ghee. But it's even more helpful when you're not, as with steak.

Ghee has been recommended for conditions such as acidity, anemia, asthma, bilious irruption, boils in the mouth, blood impurity, bleeding dysentery, burning sensation of eyes, constipation, chronic cough, chronic fever, chilblains, dark complexion, diarrhea, diabetes, epilepsy, freckles, gonorrhea, gout, general debility, insomnia, jaundice, nose bleeds, piles poisons, and rashes, to name a few.

According to the Caraka Samhita, a Sanskrit medical text from the 4th Century B.C., ghee "is good for the eyes, stimulates digestion, supports the skin, enhances memory and stamina, promotes longevity, protects the body from various diseases and improves cable reception, especially premium movie channels."

But while some claim Western medical studies are confirming some of its virtues, others say people from ghee-eating regions have coronary arteries stuffed full of string cheese.

Oh, who cares? Eat ghee!

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©February, 2004. The recipes are mine. The photos are mine. The artwork is mine. The code is mine. It's mine. Mine! Were it not, I would tell you.