What you see above is the ghee just after it has been poured into quart jars. Right now it is "liquid gold," and later it will solidify into a soft yellow color. Isn't it beautiful?
Why use ghee? Why not regular oil? Well, for a number of reasons. First, ghee tastes heavenly. When you slowly boil butter on very low heat, the milk solids separate out and brown a bit. That browning causes a delicious caramelized flavor that will enhance the flavor of anything. I even like to spread it on hot gluten-free muffins. The flavor is that outstanding! Second, in some recipes it is actually essential if you want to recreate the flavor of an ethnic food you are cooking. Third, you get that buttery/caramelly taste without any burning. That's right. You know how you cook something in butter and it burns really fast? Well, with ghee the water and milk solids are gone, so you have nothing to burn. Ghee can handle a much higher temperature than butter can. But enough of this--let's get started!
Place unsalted butter in a sauce pan. I'm doing 4 pounds here, so my pan is large. The first photo on the left shows the butter just placed in the pan. The second photo shows it after about 10 minutes when it has come to a boil on medium low heat. See how thick the foam is? Do NOT remove any foam.
Half an hour later, you can see the ghee simmering away on LOW heat. There is still a lot of foam and the oil looks cloudy. The second picture is 45 minutes later. The foam is clearing a bit, but we still have a ways to go.
An hour later, we still have foam but it isn't quite as thick. An hour and 15 minutes later, the foam is starting to clear and the liquid oil is not as cloudy. When you stir you can see many solids floating around.
An hour and a half later, this ghee is ready. Here's a close up of how thin the foam has become and how large the bubbles have gotten. Before, they were so tight you couldn't see them, but now they are large and airy. Also, you can't hear that bubbling sound anymore. You can strain now. I left this to simmer another five minutes or so because I wanted to caramelize the milk solids. Be careful at this point because you want to brown but not burn the solids!! Not every cuisine allows the solids to caramelize this far.
Line a steel pan with a steel screen mesh strainer, and then line that with several layers of cheese cloth. Don't use any plastic here because the oil is way too hot. On the right you can see the dregs after the ghee was strained through. These dregs are surprisingly sour and tasty. They can be used in many recipes.
And now you see the "liquid gold" on the left and how it has solidified on the right. Notice that the level goes down just a bit when it solidifies. So 4 pounds of butter makes almost two quarts of ghee. And that's it! That's all there really is to it!
Bring the butter to a boil over medium low heat. Once it starts a good boil, turn the heat down to low, or even very low. What you want to do is simmer the butter. So you want to see and hear some merry bubbling going on, but you don't want a raging boil because that would burn the butter. Sometimes I find myself switching from a larger burner to a smaller one, especially if I'm only doing 1 pound. Stir every five minutes or so and continue to simmer. If you're doing just 1 pound, it will probably take less time than what I showed above, maybe an hour or so. Be patient and stir. Watch for the oil itself clearing and lots of solids being stirred up. Pay attention to the foam. Is it thick or has it gotten thin with big bubbles? You want the latter. When it reaches the thin big-bubble stage, the ghee is done. You can strain now or further caramelize the solids. To further caramelize, keep simmering for another few minutes. Pay attention to the color of the foam at the edges of the pan. When you see it start to look light tan in color, remove the pan from the heat. Line a steel mesh strainer with cheese cloth, and place this over a steel pan--no plastic here! Strain the ghee through the cloth, and then pour the ghee into a clean jar. Allow to solidify.
Ghee is shelf stable. I wouldn't keep it for months and months on the shelf, but certainly you can use it over a few weeks. If you want to keep your ghee longer than that, either hermetically seal the jar with a canning lid and band or store the ghee in the refrigerator.
Go ahead and taste the ghee dregs. What do you think of them? They're kind of interesting. Many Americans throw them out, but they are are prized in many other cultures and are used as a treat with rice or in many different kinds of recipes.
A word about butter: Not all butter is created equal. Some has more fat than others. Try different brands and see what you think. I'll tell you one thing, though. I once tried to make ghee from cheap butter I bought up at Sam's Club. The next day, it had only partially solidified. Some of it continued to remain liquid. Why?? I have no idea, but I don't think that's butter! It should have solidified unless the room temperature were really hot, and here in Maine there isn't much worry about that happening. I don't know what was in that "butter," but I never bought it again.
Also, we are learning these days that saturated fat is not so bad for us after all. I'm glad I never fell for that. I've always made my own ghee and rendered my own lard and eaten as much of it as I wanted. Oh, I can hear some of you shaking in your shoes now, lol. "No! You will clog your arteries!" Nothing could be further from the truth. I won't argue with you, but I will point you in the right direction to start learning the truth about fats: Know Your Fats will help you to understand various fats, and there are a ton of articles on this link if you want to do some research. Also, The Oiling of America is an excellent article on how we got from there to here in terms of demonizing saturated fats. Just a suggestion, of course. :)
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