Make Ghee!

Today is the best day of the year to make GHEE! You probably know ghee as clarified butter. But it’s more than clarified butter it’s super clarified butter! It’s spiritualized clarified butter! Ghee is the best thing in the whole wide world. It’s great on toast, on bread, as a base to everything you sauté or use melted butter in. (Not sure about baking. If you do know, reader please share here!) Because it has a very high smoke point I even use it when I grill -it adds a wonderful flavor.

I love making ghee. You can make a little bit of ghee by just preparing a pound of butter, but I’m not a small batch kind a girl. I think you know that by now. So here it is, the recipe have been promising for over a year, ghee!

Ghee
A mostly photographic instruction. **a surprise bonus video at the end of this post.

Step 1:  Take a shower

Step 2:  Make an Altar
An Altar is nothing more than a gathering of things that give you joy, or offer a sense of closeness to your Self.  Ideally you would include an item that brings you close to “spirit”. It’s Guru Purnima so a photo or memento of a spiritual teacher or deity would be ideal. Gather your favorite things. (crystals, stones, feathers cards, drawings) Light a candle, light some incense; turn on some nice music such as chanting or classical, something calming and easy to listen to.

upstairs north window altar

Step 3: Melt the Butter.
Step 4: Wait. Ghee is not fast. You can’t rush. The ghee process that you see here took three and one half hours. I started with 3 or 4 pounds of organic unsalted butter

melt the butter over medium heat in a heavy bottomed pot. do not stir.

as it boils it will foam up, eventually it will begin to crust up onto the sides of the pot. do not stir your ghee.

take the butter to a good steady simmer, do not stir.

as it simmers it will get clearer. do not stir the ghee.

NOW you can carefully skim from the middle of the surface. do not stir. gently skim the foam to reveal the bottom of the pot.

impurities on bottom of the pot are allowed to caramelize some to sweeten the ghee. do not stir. do not allow to burn.

strain ghee. pour carefully. do not allow the impurities from the bottom to be strained through the cheese cloth. they will be stored separately.

pour into small jars for storage.

the batch.

The solids from the bottom of the pot. There are 2 schools of thought about this part of the ghee. One says they’re impure, toss them out. Others say it is the sweetest part of the ghee. I like them, I tend to have this on my toast as a treat! It is also said to add sugar to this and feed it to the children! 😉

I usually use a canning lid on the ghee jars to get a good seal. Place the lids  on while the butter is warm. It does not need to be refrigerated, even in Houston I have kept ghee in the cabinets for 2 years without any problem. If you refrigerate it, it will last “forever”. (If you don’t double dip your knife or spoon in.) BUT it will be very hard and difficult to remove from the jar when it’s cold. Just use a clean knife each time you go in, and keep it in a dark cabinet, it’ll be fine. Of course, toss it of you see mold or any other suspicious growth.

Now, the last step: sit one jar on your altar as an offering to your teacher or to spirit. Ask the universe to accept it and enjoy it and bless it with it’s pleasure. Leave the jar overnight.  Now your ghee is ready to eat.

Go on, make ghee! It’s the most perfect day of the year!

**BONUS VIDEO:

BONUS VIDEO #1: The Sound of Ghee
This is how the ghee sounds while you are cooking it. It’s LOUD stuff! How cool is this?

BONUS VIDEO #2: The Experience of Making Ghee