Homemade Ghee/Deshi ghee (Clarified butter)

• Servings:
• Preparation time: 2 minutes(each day).
• Making  curd time: 6-8 hours.
• Churning time: 8-10 minutes.
• Collecting butter time: 2-3 minutes.
• Melting butter time: 15-18 minutes.
• Total time: 33 minutes.

Learning to cook in Indian homes is about creating stories with family to relish. I have such fond memories of my Grandmother’s kitchen and the aroma of fresh home-made Ghee leaves me completely nostalgic.

Clarified Indian Butter or the very popularly known Ghee is the essence of traditional home-cooked recipe. Indian cuisine has the specialty of everything (the main ingredients in food or the residue or by-product while cooking) being put to use and innovated in a way to make it a whole new delight of its own. While contemporary women prefer shopping for all food products, traditional home-made food is becoming a happy realization again. Many Indian women, whether working or home-makers these days seek to bring the traditional styled cooking again in their homes.

Despite the dexterity involved in making Ghee/clarified butter, it is simple and not complicated at all, as infamously made to be known.  Home-made Ghee is the purest form of Ghee, can be stored for days together. Ayurveda, recognizes Ghee as an essential part of a balanced diet, and considers it to be the best recommended kind of digestible fat.  The absence of milk solids and water in Ghee make it completely storable for days together and just requires a bit of discipline in managing your dairy in the kitchen. Ghee has one of the highest flash points (485ºF) which make this oil the best choice for high temperature cooking.

I believe in traditional culture and traditional foods. Traditionally ghee is very holy, auspicious and known to be revered food in Indian culture from centuries, consider as a liquid gold. Its flavor and taste is incredible.

It is very delicious and flavourful, it attracts me since my childhood, when I had been at my maternal grand-ma place and that time I understood the benefits of Desi ghee. My Naniji was making ghee at home.

After my marriage, when I regularly started to cooking I learnt how to collect malai (fresh cream), I really love and enjoy to make Desi ghee at home. There is no proper word to explain that how much I enjoy of collecting fresh cream to make butter and Desi ghee.

I really love the smell, so today I upload the method how to make Desi ghee? And sure the post wills benefits our viewers. Homemade ghee not only saves the money but keeps you away from adulteration. It is a great source of fat soluble vitamins like vitamin ‘A’, ‘E’ and ‘K’; it has traditional medicinal value too.

Ghee is good for nerves, brain, eyes, and rich in antioxidant and improves the immune system.

Ingredients:

• Butter: 3-4 cups

Preparation:

1. I use cream (malai) from the milk of regular use, collected for 2-4 weeks.
2. It is necessary to store this malai/cream in a container in the freezer, to be converted into butter, after collecting 3-4 cups of malai.
3. How to make butter from malai: see Indian cooking manual post ‘butter’

Method:

1. Transfer the butter in a deep bottom pan or preferably in a non-stick pan.
2. Heat the butter over medium flame the butter will start melting and bright golden colour occurs; soon it will foam, then bubble, then seem to almost stop bubbling.
3. Reduce to heat on lower flame, cook for about 10-15 minutes, and please see the step wise photographs.
4. As it cooks the butter residue will slowly settle down in the bottom and the liquid will become thinner and clearer.
5. Now scrap and stir the residue, it will foam again, when the second foam occurs, you see clear golden ghee on top the residue settled in the bottom, continue heating for a while.
6. Now put off the flame. The residue settled in bottom of the pan will have dark brown colour which can be discarded. Let it cool for 2-3 minutes, Pass the ghee through a strainer and collect the pure ghee in a clean container.
7. Note:While making ghee, stir occasionally only if residue settled in bottom starts burning.
8. You can store this ghee for months at room temp.

Use of Ghee Residue:

1.  Make ghee laddoo, add handful of sattu (fried Bengal gram flour) crushed nuts, powdered sugar and mix it with the residue. Make small balls and relish.

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

Homemade Ghee/Deshi ghee (Clarified butter) by Nag Ratna Sahu is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.