Ah, butter. Such a glorious flavor. It contributes a richness and flavor that cannot be matched by anything else. If only we could cook with it at high temperatures without burning the crap out of it. Actually, we can. By clarifying the butter, we remove the water and milk solids thus increasing the smoke point without losing a whole lot of flavor. Traditionally, this is called ghee.
Ghee, historically was made from yogurt. By boiling and constantly stirring the yogurt and then straining out all the solids, we are left with a flavorful oil that works wonders for high heat cooking. The flavor is nutty, buttery, even creamy. For most of us, this is just way too time consuming to do properly, and I haven’t found real traditional ghee anyway. Nowadays, most ghee is made with butter instead of yogurt, so that is what we will talk about today.
So, first off we need to decide how good to make the Ghee. You can use expensive butter and make it super tasty, etc, but I have found there isn’t too much difference between mid-range butter and cheap butter. The only thing I WILL NOT compromise on is using sweet cream unsalted butter. Actually, if you really want to save money, you can do a 50/50 mix of butter and margarine. Ideally, you will want to make this at least a pound at a time. You will also need a heavy bottom pot for this, otherwise it will heat too quickly and you might scald the butter.
Put the pot on the stove, toss in your butter (and margarine if you choose). Start with low heat to melt the butter. Stir occasionally to make sure it does not scald. When the butter is melted all the way, start bringing up the heat stirring regularly. Ideally, the butter should get to a gentle rolling boil for about 5 minutes. After this 5 minutes, drop the temperature to a very light simmer skimming as much of the “scum” off the top as possible. When all the scum is gone, kill the heat.
Now, that you have cooked off all the water, removed as much of the particulates as possible, and separated the butter fat from the milk sugar, it is time to ladle off the butter. This is important. Don’t get greedy, don’t get impatient. Ladle out the ghee slowly into a clean container that you can seal airtight. I say slowly because you don’t want to stir up the stuff at the bottom.
Ghee is great because you can chill it or store it at room temperature. You can use it for anything you would use cooking oil for. For moments of inspiration, you can mix it with other oils to raise their smoke point and absorb their flavor. Oils like walnut, Wanna make a brown roux without the bitterness? Ghee is the way to go.
As always, if you want to let me know what you think of the instructions, what you have done with your ghee, or have any ideas for future posts, let me know with comments below, or email me.
Enjoy
