Ghee, apart from being a source of healthy fats, has been a part of our Indian kitchens for centuries now. Made with butter that is churned and extracted from the fat contained in milk, this milk product has evolved to be one of the superfoods, globally. From newborn babies who are fed ghee mixed with boiled rice as their first solid food to drizzling a spoonful over moong dal khichdi while you’re sick, ghee is known to act as an instrument in building healthy bones, lining the intestinal passage as well as lubricating the joints between bones in the body.
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Over time, it has become more and more difficult to find authentic ghee in stores and necessary to turn to age-old methods that involve the process of making a batch of golden ghee at home. After all, nothing quite beats the nutty, caramelised flavour of beautiful ghee that is extracted at home. Possibly the only foundational ingredient to making good quality ghee is to ensure that you’re able to source good milk or good cultured butter that you can make ghee out of. That said, most people these days seem to find it to be an intimidating task to make ghee at home for fear of how it might turn out. Using these simple hacks, you can make your own batch that tastes delicious and that can be used on everything from dal-chawal to frying plump, brown gulab jamuns.
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- Allowing the air to escape as the butter melts prevents the ghee from spluttering all over the place. You can facilitate this by placing a slotted spoon in the melted butter, which enables the bubbles to be freed and leaves your stovetop neat and tidy.
- Simmering the butter on a low flame will allow the scum to rise to the top of the butter. Make sure to keep pushing it to the sides of the pan but not strain it as they will eventually turn to milk solids that settle at the bottom.
- Adding a couple of cloves as the butter cooks down to make way for ghee is a great way to reduce the amount of milk solids that form and extract more ghee from the butter that is being used.
- Cool the ghee down completely before you pour it through a fine sieve or strainer and add a pinch of salt to the collected ghee to get a gorgeously grainy texture.