Categories: Elixirs

Ghee (ayurvedic clarified butter)

To start this new year on healthy foundations, we have decided to talk to you about the ghee.

The ghee is a clarified butter, from which water, impurities, lactose and proteins have been removed. It’s appropriate for lactose free diets.

Ghee is the Gold of ayurvedic medicine and it has been used for millennia in the Indian cuisine, to cook, roast and fry. It has a delicious taste of hazelnut and multiple properties.

Made up of saturated short chain fatty acids, it doesn’t turn rancid, and doesn’t oxidize.

It doesn’t blacken during the cooking process and is the most stable fat, even at high temperatures.

It can be stored at room temperature for months in an airtight container.

Its level of absorption is closed to 96%, it’s the highest of all oils and fats. It penetrates the finest cellular levels and has detoxifying, purifying, rejuvenating, and regenerating action.

It also improves the immune system.

For those reasons, the ghee is regarded as an excellent medium to the active properties of used aromatics, herbs and spices, that can be assimilate more easily by the body.

The ghee is essential to healthy cooking. It can be used as you want, to cook meat or fish, in rice or vegetables or in pastry instead of butter. Even on toasts…

Ghee

1 to 3 kg of quality unsalted butter
preferably organic (and ideally “raw”)

To have a successful process takes a little bit of patience and time (about one hour); so it’s better to make a large amount at a time, especially because of its long conservation, and also because it reduces the risks of burning it.

In a large pan with thick bottom, place the butter coarsely cut into large pieces and warm up over very low heat. It’s a slow cooking process. The butter will melt and a white foam will form at the surface, that has to be skimmed off all along, using a large spoon.

When all the foam will be removed, a golden and transparent liquid will appear, with only a few impurities at the bottom.

At this point, all the water is evaporated. To be sure, if you bring a glass above the pan, it shouldn’t be any condensation. (You can try with your glasses too…)

Then it’s ready! Pour the ghee in airtight containers, filtering it through a cotton cheesecloth to remove all the last impurities. Close and allow to cool down. The ghee will harden progressively.

Fabrice