How to Make the Best Ghee

How to Make Homemade Ghee

Let’s learn how to make the best pure ghee (Indian clarified butter) at home starting from milk cream or butter: In this detailed tutorial, I’ll teach you how to convert cream to cultured butter and then use this butter to make the best ghee. Discover essential tips for achieving the perfect consistency and rich flavor of the ghee, as well as for churning the butter more easily. Read on for clear, easy-to-follow instructions that will have you enjoying your own homemade ghee in no time!

Ghee can be used to make a variety of Indian sweets. Do check out these recipes for healthy nankhatai and for delicious rava besan laddus.

Ingredients

500g Milk Cream

1 tbsp curd

Cold water

A few curry leaves

Procedure

1. Boil and chill full cream milk. Skim off the layer of cream from the top of the milk and transfer it to a container with a lid. Store this container in the freezer compartment of your refrigerator. Repeat this procedure for the next 8 to 10 days and accumulate the fresh cream, continuously storing it in the freezer in a covered container or bowl.
2. Bring the accumulated fresh cream to room temperature. Add a tablespoon of curd to it. Mix it in well. Cover the cream and let it ferment overnight or for around 7 to 10 hours or more till it is fully set and fermented and tastes a little sour.
3. The cream has to be thoroughly chilled to help the butter separate from it more easily. You could churn the cream with a butter churner or whisk or by using a mixer-grinder. I find it easier to wash a whisk once I’m done rather than the mixer jar, and so I prefer using a whisk. First whisk the fermented cream by itself for a couple of minutes and then add in ½ a cup of chilled water, and churn it for two more minutes. In the summer time, you could also add a few ice cubes to the cream. You shouldn’t add too much of chilled water at a time to the cream or it will take longer for the butter to separate. Once you see the butter is beginning to separate, add another half cup of chilled water to the bowl and churn it till all the butter separates. After you scoop out the butter what remains is buttermilk. You can use it for different food preparations or for making kadi or just add a dash of salt to it and enjoy it as salted buttermilk.
4. Scoop out the butter or remove it using a slotted spoon and transfer it to a thick-bottomed or thick-walled cooking pot or kadai.
5. Rinse the butter out with some cold water two or three times to remove some more of the buttermilk from it. If you’re using commercially available butter to make ghee, follow the same steps as given below for cultured butter.
6. Now let the butter melt on medium heat. From this step onwards, it will take you barely 20 minutes to make pure ghee. In the beginning when it foams a lot, reduce the heat and stir the melted butter occasionally. The foam is created by the milk solids in the butter.
7. After another 10 minutes or so, the foam will start breaking up and you’ll see some of the milk solids beginning to settle at the bottom. At this stage, add in a few curry leaves or drumstick leaves or betel leaves a stick of cinnamon to add to the flavour of the ghee. Keep stirring at this stage to prevent the milk solids from sticking to the bottom and burning.
8. After another 7 to 8 minutes, almost all the milk solids will separate from the ghee and settle at the bottom and you’ll see the golden yellow melted ghee becoming clearer. Now add a tablespoon of water to the ghee and let it continue cooking. This will help give the pure ghee a nice, grainy texture.
9. By now you’ll smell the delicious aroma of pure ghee. Continue to heat the ghee for around a couple of minutes more till the milk solids just start browning. Then turn off the heat and let the ghee stand for a couple of minutes and cook further in the residual heat.
10. Strain off the pure ghee into a clean and dry jar. Strain it through a coffee filter or muslin cloth placed over a strainer if you want a clearer ghee. When it is still hot, fix the lid on the jar of ghee and let the ghee cool slowly to room temperature. This slow cooling will also help make the ghee grainier on cooling completely.
11. Since ghee contains neither water nor milk solids, it will not spoil and if stored properly, will stay good at room temperature for months.

Enjoy!