Old Git have you ever made ghee?

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Old Git, someone suggested that you have alot of answers about just about anything. Have you ever canned butter. I am getting ready for Y2K Any help is much appreciated> Linda

-- linda benson (lcbenson@bellsouth.net), July 13, 1999

Answers

linda,

There is some controversy about canning butter. This issue has been thouroughly hashed out at the Canning Corner in Mrs. Survival's forum

http://www.mrssurvival.com/cgi-bin/dcforum/dcboard.cgi

Here is an address of an excellent homecanning forum

http://www.homecanning.com/forum/

-- flora (***@__._), July 13, 1999.


Sorry, Linda, no I haven't. I'm on a reducing diet and even to think about butter puts on 8-10 ozs. We use butter for sandwiches in Britain (as you use mayo here), then I got to love it on French bread in New Orleans, melted on anything edible, put in anything baked, and used for sauteeing anything! All that's changed so I'm not worrying too much about it. You probably read about the dehydrated butter from Adventure Foods; I'll rely on some of that for Sweetie.

Now about the ghee. I have several Indian cookbooks and also one British cookbook containing information on ghee. As soon as they're unpacked, I'll look it up for you. From what I remember, ghee is just clarified butter. I wonder if you can buy it in cans at Indian food shops?

I also remember we got canned butter from the US during the war. I wonder if any military supply vendors have it. You might ask Art Pollard at his food forum:

http://www.paradise-web.com/plus/plus.mirage?who=pollarda2

Let us all know what you find out! I'm sure you're not the only one after butter.

-- Old Git (anon@spamproblems.com), July 13, 1999.


Yes, you can buy it at East Indian food markets. It can sit on the shelf for 10 months I am told, and have it on my shelf. It really has a nutty flavor, different than fresh butter, but way cheaper to buy than dehydrated butter. You might also want to try the "mustard oil". It is oil seasoned with mustard seed, adds more flavor to your indian recipes. You might also want to check out indian vegetarian recipes - It's what we plan on eating if we cannot buy fresh meat. Indian cooking is very flavorful, and I don't miss the meat dishes when I eat indian vegetarian. Right now we eat vegetarian about half of the time, and largely vegetatian in the summer. We have also reduced our meat intake to a lesser part of our diet, using it as a flavoring agent, instead of a main dish. Eventually we want to go all the way and keep a vegetarian kitchen at home. (I mean lacto-ovo-vegetarian in all uses of vegetarian in this post. We would have a very hard time going without our eggs and dairy.....and it is very present in indian cooking as well).

-- (nobody@nowhere.com), July 13, 1999.

I too am attempting to can butter, the first try was NOT successful. If anyone has any ideas how to bake without fat, please post them. I have eggs in abundance, and a solar powered light if the electric goes tits up, but I can't think of any way of storing cooking margarine without a fridge. I have lots of vegetable oil but it doesn't taste the same in cakes and in pastry it's disgusting. Old Git, I think we might all be on a reducing diet before too long!

-- liz (thehalletts@bigfoot.com), July 13, 1999.

It is simple and inexpensive to make ghee (clarified butter) at home:

Take a pound of butter and melt at the lowest flame possible in a sauce pan, preferably glass, as it holds heat well and you can watch the progress of the ghee. The butter fat will drift to the bottom, and foam will accrue at the top. When the butter is a rich golden hue and exudes a nutty odor (an hour or less), take the ghee off the flame.

Skim off the foam. A small, thinly meshed Japanese-style colander works well. Then line the colander with one or two layers of cheesecloth. Spoon the liquid butter through the colander. The cheesecloth will catch any butterfat particulates. I use a 1/4 cup measuring cup to spoon out the liquid.

Store your wonderful ghee in a glass jar. It will keep for quite a while in the refrigerator. Ghee is excellent for frying, as there is no fat to burn.

Breaded oysters are delectable fried in ghee!

-- Celia Thaxter (celiathaxter@yahoo.com), July 13, 1999.



Just about everything you ever wanted to know about ghee. . .!

From Madhur Jaffrey, An Invitation to Indian Cooking (New York: Vintage Books, a div. of Random House, 1973), pp. 9 and 25. ISBN 0-394-71191-2

There is another slight misconception even among knowledgeable Americans, which is that most Indian food is cooked in ghee, and that ghee is clarified butter. Actually, there are two kinds of ghee. The usli ghee, or "real ghee," is indeed clarified butter, but if you consider India as a whole, it is very rarely used. In a nation where milk and butter are luxuries, cooking in usli ghee for the masses is unthinkable. Most people keep a small jar of usli ghee in their kitchen and use it occasionally on their chapatis [bread] or dal [lentils], for cooking special dishes, or for religious and medicinal purposes. (I remember when at the age of twelve I had my ears pierced, for a month my mother applied hot fomentations of usli ghee and turmeric to my tortured earlobes!) In the western state of Punjab, however, usli ghee, butter, buttermilk, and milk are used much more frequently. The Punjabis, a tall strong people, tend to believe that their enterprising spirit and immense energy come from the meat, corn bread, mustard greens, and dairy products they consume, and in some households it is quite common to give each child a daily spoonful of usli ghee pretty much in the same way that American parents pop vitamin pills into their children's mouths.

The other ghee, the one that is more commonly used, is made up of various vegetable oils and is what is called a vegetable shortening in America. . . . [This is not what we're interested in so we'll cut it short and get on to the directions for usli ghee. It is well to note, however, that Jaffrey talks about this type of ghee as being the canned variety.]

Here's how you do it: Melt butter. Pour off the clear liquid, discarding the milky residue. Store, covered, in the refrigerator.

[There is no comment about how long usli ghee will keep at room temperature. I have not yet unearthed my huge British cookbook--the information may be within its pages. If so, I'll let you know.]

-- Old Git (anon@spamproblems.com), July 13, 1999.


I make ghee twice a week, and teach Ayurvedic cooking classes. (IE I do know what I'm talking about here.) I use organic butter, unsalted. Any butter will work. You put it on high simmer/light boil. It begins to foam. Continue till the foam gets heavy, sinks to the bottom of the pot, forms gunk. This is the milk solids, which you are separating from the pure butter fat. Clarified butter (ghee) is called that because it is completely transparent when warm. The milk solids contain the cholesterol that gunks up your body. Ghee will not raise your cholesterol. We eat lots of it, and both of us have great cholesterol levels and light to medium weight. Ghee has many health benefits. Only to be used lightly by those who weigh too much, as it is pure butterfat. When the milk solids on bottom of pan start to turn brown, remove from heat,cool a bit and pour the butterfat into a glass jar to store. Leave the gunk in the pot. This is where some people strain. I just pour very carefully. When I get down to the last tablespoonor so where it's hard to pour without including bits of gunk,I let it cool a bit. The gunk gets stickier and you can usually then pour out the rest of the ghee without getting gunk along with it. Take a good look at the gunk. Tha's what would be going into your arteries,etc. from just eating butter. The other thing you remove in this process is water. That helps the ghee store well without going bad. InIndia, some ghee is stored for years for medicinal purposes. Frankly, my stored ghee has not tasted so great. (I set a jar aside for several months. Not rancid,but not delicious,either.) So I am planning to make ghee then can it. But for use within a week or so, just put the jar in a cupboard, and no need to refrigerate. In response to what someone else said - hydrogenated fats are very unhealthy. Really clog you up. They are made from oils that are ofen rancid to begin with, as the rancidity cannot be tasted after hydrogenation. These oils are bubbled with hydrogen and a new substance is actually created, one that your body cannot recognize or digest. Hydrogenated fats are molecularly almost a plastic. The body tries to process them out, but it's a struggle. Why burden the body so? Eat real food! I am on vacation now, but checking in from a computer where I am passing through. If you have questions about this, ask me but know that I may be some time responding. Ghee does not need to be refrigerated. In b

-- Shivani Arjuna (S Arjuna@aol.com), July 14, 1999.

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