Desi Ghee

Recipe contributed by: Dhara Balwa

Desi Ghee is clarified butter generally derived from cow's milk. In India, it is very common to save up the Malai(cream) from the boiled milk. The malai is then mixed with some yogurt and within the next day of two, strained to make white home-made butter. This butter is then boiled to separate the solids and evaporate the water content with the end-product of ghee. Quite tedious, I know. But the end result is totally worth it.

Here, because we drink fat-free milk, it is difficult to accumulate cream to make ghee in the way it is done back in my home. And the store-bought ghee is not the same. The closest best I remember is Aseel ghee which we found in a Korean store. And one fine day, it was gone from the shelf, never to return. Then, Rashmi suggested to make ghee at home from unsalted butter sticks. What can I say, it turns out as good as the one back home. And that's the recipe I am giving.

While writing this post, I researched the history and facts about Ghee. I found quite interesting things about it in Wikipedia. You can read more here. I will go ahead and briefly write what I found. Ghee is used in many parts of the world including South Asia, Egypt, Morocco, France, Middle-East and I also used in  Dulce Leches cake, so may be it is used in South American cooking too. Mostly it is used in making desserts but we also use it in cooking our entrees and spicy dishes. I personally think it goes best with the Mughal dishes. The aroma of rice tempered with spices and ghee leaves such an appetizing fragrance in the house. That's why when I have people coming over and I have made an Indian meal, I always end my cooking with tempering the rice.

 



Prep Time: 5 min Cook Time: 20-25 min
Difficulty level: Easy

Ingredients:

6 sticks (4 oz. each) Unsalted Butter
Water to sprinkle at end

Method:

1) Put the butter sticks in a thick bottomed pan on medium-high heat.

2) Keep an eye on butter. After about 17 minutes, lower the heat a bit and wait for the butter to be transparent so that you can see the bottom of the pan.

3) Once you see the light brown formation of solids at the bottom of the pan, remove the pan from heat and quickly sprinkle a few water drops.

4) Cool it completely before storing in a container.

You can refrigerate or freeze ghee for a long time.