The Power of Ghee

Ghee has no power whatsoever but man, it tastes so good. (In other news, I have been getting walloped by this season’s totes mcgoats cold viruses. Red, yellow, black, and white, they’ll get Whimsy sick, alright.)

Ghee is a type of clarified butter, yeah? It can be made from ordinary (organic/grassfed preferred) stick butter. What differentiates ghee from butter is that the butter is simmered until the milk proteins and stuff separate from the lovely, golden goodness and then the liquid gold is strained to leave a substance pretty darn close to being lactose free. Close. Very close.

The foam simmer stage

Anyway, I have been reading about this for months and could never find it in a grocery store (I found out two days ago that I was looking in the wrong place. It’s on the cooking aisle next to the coconut oil.) so I finally decided to make my own. Couldn’t be that hard, right?

                                              

   The straining stage 

It totally isn’t!!! Maybe twenty minutes of time and the result is what butter should be. Like, if cows weren’t affected by The Fall, or something. Unadulterated, pure and concentrated goodness. You ever had homemade salted caramel? Oh yeah, baby. Slather some of this ghee on your toast, add a sprinkling of sea salt, and the same taste profile is there, minus the cream and sugar. The richness explodes in your mouth, robust and bright—if you use the right amount, ghee adds an extra dimension.

                                             
                                                                  .... From a different angle. 

While I do use my ghee on toast occasionally, I especially love drizzling it atop steamed broccoli, a baked potato, or other types of cooked vegetables, following up with some freshly ground sea salt, of course (unless you have kidney/heart issues then, you know… I wouldn’t recommend it).

                                            
                                                                                                                Repeat after me: this is not pee.

So, why exactly should you try ghee?

Gosh, if the description alone doesn’t convince you, then I’d move on; ain’t no waxing poetic on its health benefits here. My inner epicurean recommends it purely for sensual reasons.

List of reasons you should (if you, ya know, want to) at least try ghee:

1. It’s easy to make
2. It’s about 49345x tastier than butter
3. It sounds fancy
4. Oh, and it has a higher smoke point, so there’s a legitimate reason to use it when cooking in the skillet

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Homemade Ghee

Ingredients:

• 1 lb UNSALTED* butter (preferably grassfed/organic)

Equipment:

• Metal sauce pan
• Wide-mouthed, jarring funnel
• Wide-mouthed bowl 
• Colander
• Cheesecloth (a coffee filter will work in a pinch)
• 16 oz glass mason jar

Instructions:

• 
Place butter in the saucepan (dicing the butter leads to quicker melting time) and turn stove on medium. Wait until butter melts completely and begins to simmer.

• After beginning to simmer, reduce heat to medium-low or until the butter is simmering throughout  the pot but not at a rolling boil. Stir occasionally.

• Continue to simmer. You will begin to see the liquid brown as the milk products begin sinking. Continue to stir occasionally.

• The butter is ready to pour when the simmering quality of the butter begins to look like whipped egg whites (it took me around 20 minutes to reach this stage). At this point, I placed the colander atop the wide-mouthed bowl and coated the colander with coffee filters, ‘cos no cheesecloths in this here joint.

• Slowly, pour the butter/ghee over the coffee filters. The filters are so fine that this process will take a little bit. After the ghee had drained sufficiently, I placed the jarring funnel into the mason jar and poured the lovely goodness inside (it really does look like pee, huh).

• Toss out the toasty milk curds. Let ghee cool a bit.

ENJOY! Be sure to salt as you spread!! Unless… You know. :)

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*Using salted butter yields an awful, salty ghee, so I’ve heard.


Loves!

 Also, here is an Auggie burrito.