Homemade ghee. Homemade ghee (Ghee)
They say that ghee was the first to be prepared in India, where it is called Ghee.
Among Hindus, this oil is considered a very valuable product (like gold and grain), symbolizing the well-being of the family and having numerous healing properties.
Its main property is that it is beneficial for our liver - it is better absorbed by the body and helps in digesting food, promotes the removal of waste and toxins, and also protects against free radicals, which, of course, leads to increased immunity and preservation of youth.
Total cooking time – 1 hour 10 minutes
Active cooking time – 0 hours 15 minutes
Cost – average cost
Calorie content per 100 g - 748 kcal
Number of servings – 100 servings
How to make ghee
Ingredients:
Butter – 1 kg.
Preparation:
1. As the name suggests, ghee is just melted butter... albeit with a certain technique. During the melting process, the butter is cleared of all solid impurities (lactose, for example), protein (coseine, which increases the level of bad cholesterol in the blood) and water.
And even after prolonged heat treatment, ghee is rich in antioxidants, vitamins A and E...
Ghee can be stored for quite a long time - up to 9-15 months, does not burn when frying, does not foam and does not smoke - important qualities! In addition, it has an excellent taste, with a subtle nutty smell.
Ghee can be prepared in several ways: by slow and long heating (Oriental style), melting in a water bath, melting with some water (Russian style), as well as in the oven or using modern kitchen aids such as a slow cooker, for example... there are many ways - the essence is the same: to get healthy, pure oil without any impurities and water.
I will focus on the first method, the so-called Ghee oil.
What should you know before you decide to make ghee?
Firstly, the initial product - butter must be of high quality, with a fat content of at least 82% (preferably), and not containing any additives or salt.
Secondly, you should take a pan with a thick bottom - such sediment will not burn.
Thirdly, the heating time depends on the amount of oil. For 1 kilogram of oil it will take about 1 hour.
2. So, gradually melting, the oil will reach almost the boiling point. White foam will begin to appear on the surface. Then you need to reduce the heat to the lowest possible level (the oil should not bubble violently) and leave it to simmer further, without covering it with any lid - the water should evaporate.
3. So gradually more and more foam will appear, and a foam cap like this will form on the surface.
4. At first it will be airy, but at the same time quite oily. Therefore, do not rush to remove it, remove some of the oil along with the foam, but what do we need?!... let it simmer quietly...
Just remember – don’t stir it!
5. After some time, the foam will become noticeably less, it will no longer be so fluffy.
Now carefully remove it with a slotted spoon, giving time for the oil to drain back into the pan.
6. If desired, you can also strain through several layers of gauze into another pan, and then put it back on low heat to simmer further until the desired color and smell.
I do this in order to get rid of the sediment that has formed at the bottom of the pan - after all, it can still start to burn and can ruin the taste of the oil.
7. The oil is still a little cloudy, but...
8. ...gradually becomes quite golden-transparent, you can even see the inscription on the bottom of the pan...
9. Pour the oil into a prepared container, glass or ceramic, and leave to cool without covering it with a lid.
And then put it in the refrigerator to harden.
10. The butter has a pleasant creamy nutty taste. Without harm to health, you can season porridge, coat pancakes... and frying with it is a pleasure - nothing burns on it.
Ghee is a product that is known to many peoples: Europeans and Asians. In Rus' it was also widespread for a long time. Then his popularity began to decline. Today this product is known in Russia under the name ghee (ghee), borrowed from Vedic literature.
What are the benefits and what is ghee used for?
Ghee was known to our ancestors, who were aware of its beneficial qualities and therefore used it regularly. Nowadays, this product is used extremely rarely, so few recipes for its preparation have survived.
It can be used to make various dishes, for cosmetic and medicinal purposes. The product has a large number of beneficial properties for humans.
It also has tonic and rejuvenating properties and can strengthen the nervous system and immunity. The influence of this product on human mental processes has been proven, which significantly improves.
If a person suffers from chronic pain in the lower back and joints, then he can use this product to alleviate his condition. It will also be useful for colds.
Many housewives who regularly use ghee value it for its ability to be used for frying, since the product will not cause any harm to health due to the absence of proteins involved in the production of carcinogens. For all its benefits, the use of ghee can also have negative sides. The product is harmful to people with excess weight and heart disease.
It is very often used in cosmetology, since it can have a positive effect on the condition of sagging and dehydrated skin, removes peeling and fine wrinkles.
How to make ghee
To prepare the product, you should buy unsalted butter, which has the maximum fat content. The cooking process is as follows:
Oven recipe
This product should be prepared in the oven using unsalted fatty butter. To prepare it you need to follow the following plan:
Making the Healthiest Ghee
In some Asian countries: India, Pakistan, Nepal, Sri Lanka, a product called ghee (ghee) has become widespread. This is the name given to cow's butter that has undergone a purification procedure. Purification means ridding it of all impurities, including water.
To prepare ghee, it is better to use rustic unsalted butter or butter made from cream yourself. If these requirements are not met, you will end up with either low-quality ghee or too little of it.
Cooking method:
This product does not require refrigeration. Moreover, its shelf life can be several years. An indicator of the quality of ghee is its evaporation without any residue after placing it in a saucepan or frying pan.
How to store ghee at home
If the butter has been prepared correctly, its shelf life at room temperature is unlimited. It is better to store it in an opaque container away from electrical appliances and light sources. If you place the oil in the refrigerator, its shelf life will increase.
Methods of treatment using ghee
In folk medicine, there are several ways to use ghee for medicinal purposes:
- To prevent colds, it is recommended to lubricate the mucous membranes of the nose;
- You can strengthen your immune system if you take this product every morning in combination with fennel, cardamom or saffron;
- To soften your throat and calm a cough, you can pour half a liter of milk with one tablespoon of honey and ghee, as well as a beaten egg. Divide the resulting mixture into several doses and take it warm;
- Another proven cough remedy is to suck one tablespoon of the product on an empty stomach;
- To treat sinusitis, it is often recommended to instill ghee twice a day. The recommended dose is three drops in each nostril.
It is definitely worth mentioning that only homemade products should be used as a remedy.
Ghee is a product that is found in different cultures. Its benefits cannot be underestimated. Hindus, Pakistanis, Nepalese and other South Asian peoples use it to prepare various dishes, for medicinal purposes and for religious rituals. Making your own ghee is very easy, so there is no need to buy a ready-made product.
No matter what this butter is called - simply ghee, or, as it is now fashionable to call it, ghee - this is a magnificent product.
Gone are the days when we, without knowing any doubts, bought butter, spread it on bread, and cooked with it. And the old proverb “you can’t spoil porridge with butter” was almost an axiom. All of us, led by nutritionists, are divided into two camps: some say that butter is harmful, others say that it is healthy and necessary.
We will not present the arguments of both - they are all quite convincing, although diametrically opposed. We admit that finding real butter today is a problem, as we are convinced not only by numerous television and print investigations, but also by our own experience.
Often only the label and appearance indicate that the butter is butter. But, as soon as you unwrap it at home, your nose first signals that we have bought a fake again, because the oil either has no odor at all, or it is quite unpleasant. And once you melt it in a frying pan, the conclusion is confirmed.
Sooner or later, following our choice or the recommendations of friends, we find the variety that suits us. So, not wanting to give up our favorite oil, but realizing that the situation with it is unlikely to change in the near future, let's read the labels more carefully. And also, don’t be lazy about melting the oil in order to get a truly healthy and safe product that cannot be replaced by anything, and certainly not by fashionable spreads.
Why? Besides the fact that butter is delicious, it also contains about 150 healthy fatty acids. And 20 of them, essential for the human body, can be obtained only from this oil.
As for its calorie content, here are a few numbers: the average calorie content of butter is 750 kilocalories per 100 grams. All vegetable fats have a calorie content of more than 900 kcal - with the exception of olive fat - 824 kcal.
As for the characteristics of ghee - its calorie content is 885 kcal, while it is purified from unnecessary impurities, foreign inclusions and water. It can be stored for a long time not even in the refrigerator, you can easily cook with it - it does not burn, does not foam, and does not shoot out burning drops. Its combustion temperature increases, depending on the degree of purification, to 200-250 °, versus 170-175 ° for natural oil.
We have come up with 3 simple ways to melt oil: in the oven, in a water bath, on a stove burner.
For any of the methods, the butter is cut into pieces. The dishes are not covered with lids.
In the oven, it is melted in a thick-walled container with high walls so that drops of oil do not fall on the walls of the oven, at 150 °.
We find reheating in a water bath more convenient. The oil is placed in an enamel bowl, which is placed in a water bath. Allow the water to boil strongly until the butter melts and the surface reaches a slight ripple - at this point we reduce the heat to low, let the butter sit on it for 1.5-2 hours, until completely transparent. Of course, we remove the foam. Readiness is indicated by a thin crust on the surface and a layer of sediment on the bottom. Let the finished butter cool down, carefully remove the crust, and strain.
A good option is to reheat it in a thick metal frying pan or pan. Here we immediately turn on the heat below medium so that the butter melts gradually. We do not ignore the foam, which is best removed with a wooden spoon. Process time varies depending on the amount of oil. It is believed that it is not worth reheating less than 500 g at all. The sign of readiness is the same: the oil should become transparent, with a layer of unnecessary suspension at the bottom.
Approximate time: 500-600 g - about 1.5 hours, 1 kg - 2 hours. The yield of ghee is approximately 700 g from 1 kg.
The butter should harden at room temperature, after which it can be kept in the refrigerator.
Practical advice
- Dishes for reheating must be absolutely clean: no scale, rinse with boiling water, dry.
- With any method, keep the temperature low, avoiding both extremes: very low heat - water remains in the oil, high heat - the oil can burn and saponify. Avoid boiling and bubbles.
- It happens that only during the process we notice that the dishes are not right, the sediment may begin to burn. In this case, it is worth pouring the oil in a thin stream (without sediment) into another container.
- For melting, choose oil with a fat content of at least 82%. If you can find a real rustic one, that's the best. From the store ones usually - “Anchor”, “Valio”.
- There is no need to rush, remember that the more oil, the longer the process. Constantly skim off foam and white flakes.
- Properly melted homemade butter has a nutty aroma and taste, a pleasant sunny hue, and does not foam or burn.
Butter is one of nature's most luxurious gifts to humanity.
The most delicious butter is born where natural conditions favor man and his pets. After all, all you need to make good butter is excellent milk, a little skill and a clear conscience.
It’s a pity that natural butter is a perishable product. After all, in addition to fat, it contains water, protein and sugar in the form of lactose, which can serve as a breeding ground, including for bacteria that are not the most healthy and worsen the taste of foods.
It’s a pity that it’s not so easy to cook with natural butter: until the water evaporates, the butter sizzles and splashes, its temperature is so low that you can’t really fry it, and when there’s no water left in the butter, the proteins and sugars will soon burn.
But people have learned to separate water, proteins and sugars from milk fat, which can be stored indefinitely, and cooking with it is a pleasure, and its taste fully matches the aroma of meadow herbs and flowers that the cow ate.
The easiest way to make ghee is to put the butter on the fire and wait until the water evaporates. During this time, some of the proteins will rise to the surface along with the foam; they, of course, can be removed.
But the other part of the proteins will be held at the bottom by water that is heavier than fat. There these proteins will burn when the water evaporates, from there the breakdown products of the proteins will color the butter with the taste of burnt milk. Now do you understand why you didn’t like the taste of ghee before?
But perhaps you didn’t like it also because it wasn’t fresh butter that was heated, but slightly “sweetened” butter, which can no longer be eaten in its pure form. So to speak, they “saved the product.”
Another reason is that some people confuse ghee with once heated butter. That's right - who would like the grains that form when it hardens?
In addition, in heated oil, water, proteins and carbohydrates remain in place. Perhaps some of the bacteria die when heated, but they will inevitably start again. And cooking with such oil is the same as with butter - the same problems.
But if the oil is heated very slowly and not brought to the boiling point of water, then sooner or later it will separate into its components. Lighter fat will rise to the top, and water, proteins and carbohydrates will settle down. The slower the heating was, the longer the temperature of approximately 85C was maintained in the oil, the better the result.
How to do it? Multicookers, rice cookers, slow cookers and other kitchen appliances that can maintain the temperature in a given range for a long time will help. For example, five to six hours, if we are talking about three to four kilograms of butter. If none of the above is present, build a water bath.
And you shouldn’t mess with less! And the hassle is unjustified, and the amount of oil turned out to be offensively small. After all, even if the butter was sour, crumbled when trying to spread it on bread, tended to spoil or at least turn yellow at the edges - in a word, it behaved like the most ordinary natural product, all the same - the result is surprisingly tasty ghee.
How to separate one liquid from another? It’s very simple if you remember that when it cools, milk fat hardens faster than water. Just put the container with butter in the cold, and then take out the solid ghee. The remaining cream from the bottom of the piece can be washed off with a stream of cold water. After this, the oil must be heated again to 125C to evaporate the remaining moisture from it and remove a small amount of foam. Properly prepared ghee does not even need a refrigerator for storage.
This article and photographs were included in the book "PLOV"
Ghee, also known by its Indian name ghee, is rendered milk fat that has been freed from plasma. Milk plasma is a combination of milk proteins, milk sugar, minerals, enzymes and vitamins together with the aqueous phase. In other words, it is “everything that is not fat.”
Ghee Recipe
To prepare ghee at home, you will need heavy utensils: a steel, enameled, cast-iron pan with thick walls, a heavy wok, a cauldron or a duck pot, that is, a vessel that can ensure uniform heating of the entire volume of butter. Also stock up on a gas burner divider (if you don’t have an electric stove), a wooden spatula, gauze for straining and a sieve.
Ingredients:
- Natural butter made from cream
Cooking process:
If you have a gas stove, install a divider on the burner. Place a saucepan on it and light the lowest heat. If, like me, you have an electric stove or hob, then this is level 3 of 9. Place the butter in the pan and allow it to melt completely.
Wait until foam appears and the oil begins to bubble slowly on the surface. If no movement in the mass is observed when heating on an electric stove, then increase the heating by one.
Continue heating the oil. As soon as the thickness of the oil becomes transparent, and through it you can see the protein clots that have fallen to the bottom, turn off the heat. It is not necessary to remove the foam; most of it will melt off by itself by the end of cooking.
If you want the butter to have a nutty flavor, wait until the protein sediment at the bottom of the pan begins to darken slightly. And immediately remove from heat. Then you can let the oil sit a little longer for a more intense taste, or strain it right away.
Before straining, remove the remaining foam with a slotted spoon and set aside in a separate container - these proteins give any vegetarian dish a meaty flavor, somewhat reminiscent of lamb. Therefore, you can safely add them to pilaf or vegetable stew.
Line a sieve with two layers of gauze, pour the oil through the sieve into a glass or ceramic container for later storage. Close the container with a lid.
To achieve a grainy texture, the butter needs to cool slowly, so don't put it in the refrigerator straight away. After about 12-24 hours, the oil should turn from an amber liquid to a golden thick, grainy texture. After this, it can be put into the refrigerator for storage or stored at room temperature, preferably (to be on the safe side) away from direct sunlight.
It should be noted that the taste of ghee is determined by the degree of frying of the protein sediment: the more it is fried, the brighter the nutty aroma and taste, the darker the color. This way you can get brown (beurre noisette) and black (beurre noir) ghee used in French cuisine.
In fact, the recipe for ghee is very simple. The product is of high quality in the presence of natural creamy raw materials.
Best regards, Anyuta.
