Clarified butter

I don't often cook with butter since I love olive oil so much. However, recently I purchased a pint on ghee, and now am wondering just how to use it. I have considered mixing 1/2 x 1/2 with OO but an Indian lady in the store said no-no! I see a couple posts lately about using clarified butter with some seafood, and that sounds reasonable. What else would you use ghee for?

Hi,

Ghee keeps just about for ever in the fridge, so you don't need to be in a hurry to use it. My main uses of it are for indian cooking, in recipes like this http://pagesperso-orange.fr/souvigne/recipes/main440.htm or this http://pagesperso-orange.fr/souvigne/recipes/main520.htm. In addition, ghee is excellent for sealing the top of terrines or patés instead of the better known lard. So, if you ever wanted to make potted shrimps (a wonderful way of serving the little brown shrimps they get in the UK) or crab, which use butter to warm the shellfish, you could pour a layer of melted ghjee over the top to help to preserve it a little longer.

It can also be substituted for butter in pastry making, though I've not tried this. Professional pastry cooks in Europe can buy "concentrated butter" which is nothing more or less than ghee.

With filo dough to make a wide range of Greek pastries.

Ghee differs from European-type clarified butter in one important respect: when you make clarified butter, you let all the water simmer off from the butter, you skim the solids floating on the top, then you pour off the butter fat from the solids that have sunk to the bottom. To make ghee, you simmer for an hour or two more, until the solids on the bottom have browned (caramelized, but not burned), and THEN you skim off any floating solids and pour off the pure butter fat. The result is butter fat with a touch of a nut flavor to it, compared to European clarified butter.

Both clarified butter and ghee can be heated to deep-frying temperatures without burning.

As long as it doesn't get damp, freshly made ghee keeps almost forever at room temperature. Used ghee (i.e., drained and filtered after being used for deep-frying) will keep almost forever if refrigerated. Like all oils or fats, if it's exposed to enough moist air it will go stale or rancid.

Ghee is THE traditional staple frying fat of Northern Indian cuisine. It IS a saturated fat, so if you have dietary concerns about that, ghee isn't for you. But let's face it--butter fat tastes good. It's why a lot of the dishes in French haute cuisine skim off and discard the fat that naturally arises from the foods being cooked and substitutes a butter fat in the final sauce.

And it's about the easiest thing in the world to make. Just take a large quantity of butter (one pound or more), melt it over moderate-low heat until it is just simmering, then let it sit for four hours. The only way you can go wrong is if the heat is too high and you burn the solids. A thick-walled pan (heavy copper lined with stainless steel is ideal; cast iron or ceramic-lined thick aluminum is also good) helps keep things under control.

-Paul W.

Thanks, Paul!
I broke down and spent about $15 for a container of clarified butter. It works as well or better than what I've struggled with myself. I guess what I did wrong was I didn't make enough. If I wanted a tablespoon of clarified butter, I'd try to clarify a couple of tablespoonsful of butter, and usually end up with not enough.

Question 1: After you've brought your pound of butter to the simmer, do you turn off the heat?
Question 2: After the butter has sat for 4 hours (presumably with the heat off), how do you "pour off" the semi-solid goo, which is, of course, the clarified butter that you want? Do you just wait for a hot day?

To answer your questions:

After I bring the butter to a very gentle simmer, I leave it on the very low simmer, so that the moisture in the butter very gradually bubbles off. Keep the heat very low during the whole process. The butter stays liquid, and hot, the whole time, so there is no problem skimming it and pouring it off the solids. I usually pour the ghee through a couple of layers of cheesecloth to catch any stray particles.

The key thing is to keep the temperature high enough that you're getting a few bubbles as the water evaporates, but low enough that you don't scorch the butter solids. This is why a heavy-bottomed pan with good conductive characteristics helps.

And the leftover solids, by the way, are tasty when spread on toast.

-Paul W.

I see, said the blind carpenter as he picked up his hammer and saw.

John

Funny thing about those hammers....

I don't often cook with butter since I love olive oil so much. However, recently I purchased a pint on ghee, and now am wondering just how to use it. I have considered mixing 1/2 x 1/2 with OO but an Indian lady in the store said no-no! I see a couple posts lately about using clarified butter with some seafood, and that sounds reasonable. What else would you use ghee for?

I say no, no, too, Bob. Whether it's European style clarified butter, or the caramelized ghee, you have a product that requires no dilution of any kind. The milk fat solids and water are gone - it has a very high flash point. You could literally deep fry in it. If you're making a dish with a very simple sauce I would use clarified butter. The heartier Indian dishes stand up well to the caramel in ghee.