Tom's blog

Ghee butter

Posted on 10. Feb, 2010 by Tom Greenwald in Healthy eating

What is Ghee?

Recently I have become interested in healthy and tasty untraditional foods that can be made at home. By digging through some forums I found an interesting and tasty product which can be easily made at home and used in various ways. It is called Ghee or Ghee butter, but it is not an actual butter – it’s a butter product. The recipe and all the using tips come from the Indian culture, specifically – Ayurveda. The knowledge of this recipe is more than a couple of thousands of years old. The Ghee is made from unsalted butter by melting or simmering it and separating the protein from milk solids. Ghee is almost entirely a saturated fat and you can use it every day for your meals and other purposes. It is claimed that the best Ghee comes out on the first day of full moon.

How to make it?

It is important not to burn the butter while it is melting. That’s why I put a smaller metallic bowl into a pot which is filled with water, so that the butter that is in the bowl doesn’t get too much direct heat. Put it on a medium flame and leave for some time (it depends on how much Ghee you are making – for a 200g package I waited for 30-40 minutes). With time you will see that the butter is layering – on the top there is white-yellow foam, in the middle there is the product we need – transparent and amber-colored fat, on the bottom there is another unusable layer of the butter.

After the layers are clearly visible, the melting is over and you need to separate the product. I take a 6-7 layered butter cloth and pour the product into a glass jar, so that the foam stays on the cloth. Be aware that the white mass that is in the bottom is also unusable, so you have to be careful not to pour it through the cloth. Then, leave the jar to cool off – Ghee will grow harder and the transparency will go away. In a couple of hours your Ghee is ready!
Another thing – keep it in the room temperature, don’t put it in the refrigerator – this product will be still ok even after several months or, some sources say, years.

Benefits from Ghee

First, you can use it in your everyday nutrition. It is actually pretty tasty, so now I have replaced the usual butter with ghee when eating sandwiches. Also, for example, fried potatoes are considered to be one of the worst or heavy things you can eat. But, using Ghee instead of cooking oil, they change the flavor and Ghee also helps your digestive system to process them. It is the same with any vegetables you want to cook on your pan. Also, it is known that all cooking oils, including olive oil, create cancerogenic substances if they are heated repeatedly for a long time at the temperatures which are mostly used in the cooking processes. However, Ghee doesn’t do that and remains healthy. So, for salads and other stuff you can use olive oil but for cooking you can use Ghee instead.
Experts also say that Ghee regulates the digestive apparatus and oils all the processes in our bodies – it cleans the intestinal canal, liver, blood vessels and excretory organs.

Second, some people use it for sore throat and the common colds by rubbing it on the sore areas – the neck or the chest.

Ghee is an organic substance that also nourishes skin and helps to prevent dry and damaged skin in winter. You can use it as a lip balm, hand, face and body lotion that moistures and nurtures the skin and helps to remedy frost-cleft areas.

Can I just buy it?

There are some places (market, Ayurvedic shops, even some malls) where you can buy it, but mostly it will be so expensive that you won’t believe your eyes. For example, if a 200g package of regular butter costs around 1$, a 500g jar of Ghee will cost even 10 – 15$ and more. So, if you are interested, just try it by making it at home yourself. I don’t regret it and can’t wait for the next full moon phase because my jar is half empty already.