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This is how Ghee is made in my house. 0. Be from a family line that consumes gallons up gallons of curd/yogurt weekly. 1. Curd Process - Boil whole milk, let

This is how Ghee is made in my house. 0. Be from a family line that consumes gallons up gallons of curd/yogurt weekly. 1. Curd Process - Boil whole milk, let it cool down a bit, and add some older curd, let it sit overnight in your oven with the light on. 2. The next morning, put the container in the refrigerator. 3. At night, you'll notice a think layer of creamy butter on top of the curd. Scrape that layer off the curd and transfer it into a container that you will store in your freezer. Enjoy the curd. 4. Repeat steps 0-3 over a few days, which will cause you to have a container full of creamy butter. 5. When you need ghee, melt the contents at medium heat while continuing to stir to maximize the ghee you'll make out of it. You will start seeing some particulate forming at the bottom 6. Filter and transfer the melted contents into your ghee container. 7. Turn off the stove but continue stirring the particulate matter with some added sugar for a tasty sweet. 8. Rinse Repeat.

kop316 7y ago
This is awesome! I'm going to attempt it.
dragontamer 7y ago
Do people really need Ghee specifically? Or do people need "clarified butter" If you just want "butter that doesn't burn", here's what I do. 1. Melt butter in a pot. This separates butter into its three fundamental parts: solids (floating at the top), oil (in the middle), and water. 2. Heat until all the water at the bottom vaporizes. 3. Pour remaining mixture through a coffee filter. This removes the solids (which easily burn). Milk Solids burn at 350F, making raw butter unsuitable for frying. The goal of clarified butter (and Ghee is a type of clarified butter), is to raise the smoke-point to roughly 450F (roughly equivalent to canola oil). Normal butter will burn before the mallard reaction (Mallard is roughly 400F). But clarified butter burns AFTER the mallard reaction. The mallard reaction is what makes the slightly-sweet nicely cooked meat taste. Similar reactions occur in vegetables, meats, breads, etc. etc. So its very important to use oils which burn at higher temperatures (450F+: Clarified Butter, Canola Oil, Soy Oil, Peanut Oil). Some fats, such as normal-butter, bacon fat, or olive oil burn at 350F. So you end up with a "burnt" taste from the burning fat before the mallard reaction even takes place. -------- Ghee is a particular "cooked butter" taste. Its a bit more difficult to make (and more expensive than) simple clarified butter. If you're sauteing, frying, or whatever with butter, its important to know how to clarify it. Or I guess use Ghee (but that's more expensive / time consuming).
- kop316 7y ago
  To be honest, I didn't know there was a difference. I was more looking for a substitute for shortening, which I think clarified butter can do? Or just ghee?
  - dragontamer 7y ago
    All fats can substitute for each other depending on recipe. It will taste different but it's really fun to replace fats with other fats. Ex, bacon grease works in more recipes than you'd expect. Just memorize their smoke points, the point where a fat begins to burn. Shortening has a very high smoke point, but that is only relevant if you expect the temperature to go above 400F, such as the mallard reaction (aka the taste of fried / saute food). You'll learn pretty quick when a fat burns quickly. Olive oil and bacon grease burn at really low temperatures and will create a thick cloud of smoke as it burns. Look up the smoke points of fats if you are worried. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:Smoke_point_of_cooking_oils https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:Smoke_point_of_cookin...
    - ericd 7y ago
      Really interesting, thanks for the brain dump! What do you look for to know when your pan is preheated enough to eg sear meat well if you don't wait for a little smoke?
      - dragontamer 7y ago
        I do actually wait for a little smoke. It's a very consistent measurement of pan temperature. If I choose a 450F smoke point fat, like canola oil, I know that the pan is 450F when it starts to smoke. I got the reaction wrong earlier, mallard is 300F or so. Caramelization is 400F
        YeGoblynQueenne 7y ago
        Close- wikipedia says 280°F to 330°F - see my comment above. But in that case, like I say in my longer comment, it doesn't make sense for olive oil to catch fire "easily", like you say in your previous comment. What olive oil are you using, if I'm not being too nosey? Sorry if I sound defensive- I'm just really surprised. olive oil is very common where I come from :)
saganus 7y ago
Interesting. What's the point of leaving the ove light on? is it to keep the stuff at a mild temperature?
- ericd 7y ago
  Not the OP, but guessing it's to keep it a bit warmer than room temp to help the cultures do their thing.
YeGoblynQueenne 7y ago
>> Curd Process - Boil whole milk, let it cool down a bit, and add some older curd, let it sit overnight in your oven with the light on. I learned recently that curdling milk can be achieved in many different ways: the easiest way is to leave it out of the fridge overnight (unless it's long-life). Especially in a warm environment the lactobacili in the milk itself and in the air will do their job and you'll have curdled milk in the morning. I'm guessing that's probably how the first dairy products were made, though I wouldn't want to speculate about the tastes of the first person to try curdled milk. Another way is to add some acid like vinegar or lemon. Lactobacili that curdle the milk naturally actually release lactic acid: fermentation is the same kind of anaerobic respiration that happens in our muscles when they're not getting enough energy from oxygen alone. In our case, it's our body burning the sugars in our fat to create lactic acid. The lactobacili in the milk eat lactose and turn it into lactic acid. It seems that this acid production is at least partly responsible for the curdling of milk. Another common way is to use, er, whey- the byproduct of milk fermentation. Some traditional cheeses (e.g. Greek mizithra and anthotyros) are made by keeping some of the whey in previous batches to ferment new batches. Yet another way is to use a bacterial culture especially meant to ferment milk, like kefir (please: it's pronounced keh-FEER; not like Donald Sutherland's son). In fact, I learned all this because I started making kefir at home and I got to the point I'm making cheese. It turns out- you can use kefir to make butter also, although I haen't tried it and I don't know the process well enough to describe it. Finally, there is of course the use of rennet, which is an enzyme found in the er, I think fourth stomach of ruminants, and that's used mainly in cheese making (especially for hard cheeses, it's the stuff that gives yellow cheese curds their texture). Anyway, fermentation -as in milk curdling, wine brewing, sourdough making etc- is cool.

kop316 7y ago

This is awesome! I'm going to attempt it.

dragontamer 7y ago

Do people really need Ghee specifically? Or do people need "clarified butter" If you just want "butter that doesn't burn", here's what I do. 1. Melt butter in a pot. This separates butter into its three fundamental parts: solids (floating at the top), oil (in the middle), and water. 2. Heat until all the water at the bottom vaporizes. 3. Pour remaining mixture through a coffee filter. This removes the solids (which easily burn). Milk Solids burn at 350F, making raw butter unsuitable for frying. The goal of clarified butter (and Ghee is a type of clarified butter), is to raise the smoke-point to roughly 450F (roughly equivalent to canola oil). Normal butter will burn before the mallard reaction (Mallard is roughly 400F). But clarified butter burns AFTER the mallard reaction. The mallard reaction is what makes the slightly-sweet nicely cooked meat taste. Similar reactions occur in vegetables, meats, breads, etc. etc. So its very important to use oils which burn at higher temperatures (450F+: Clarified Butter, Canola Oil, Soy Oil, Peanut Oil). Some fats, such as normal-butter, bacon fat, or olive oil burn at 350F. So you end up with a "burnt" taste from the burning fat before the mallard reaction even takes place. -------- Ghee is a particular "cooked butter" taste. Its a bit more difficult to make (and more expensive than) simple clarified butter. If you're sauteing, frying, or whatever with butter, its important to know how to clarify it. Or I guess use Ghee (but that's more expensive / time consuming).

kop316 7y ago
To be honest, I didn't know there was a difference. I was more looking for a substitute for shortening, which I think clarified butter can do? Or just ghee?
- dragontamer 7y ago
  All fats can substitute for each other depending on recipe. It will taste different but it's really fun to replace fats with other fats. Ex, bacon grease works in more recipes than you'd expect. Just memorize their smoke points, the point where a fat begins to burn. Shortening has a very high smoke point, but that is only relevant if you expect the temperature to go above 400F, such as the mallard reaction (aka the taste of fried / saute food). You'll learn pretty quick when a fat burns quickly. Olive oil and bacon grease burn at really low temperatures and will create a thick cloud of smoke as it burns. Look up the smoke points of fats if you are worried. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:Smoke_point_of_cooking_oils https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:Smoke_point_of_cookin...
  - ericd 7y ago
    Really interesting, thanks for the brain dump! What do you look for to know when your pan is preheated enough to eg sear meat well if you don't wait for a little smoke?
    - dragontamer 7y ago
      I do actually wait for a little smoke. It's a very consistent measurement of pan temperature. If I choose a 450F smoke point fat, like canola oil, I know that the pan is 450F when it starts to smoke. I got the reaction wrong earlier, mallard is 300F or so. Caramelization is 400F
      - YeGoblynQueenne 7y ago
        Close- wikipedia says 280°F to 330°F - see my comment above. But in that case, like I say in my longer comment, it doesn't make sense for olive oil to catch fire "easily", like you say in your previous comment. What olive oil are you using, if I'm not being too nosey? Sorry if I sound defensive- I'm just really surprised. olive oil is very common where I come from :)

saganus 7y ago

Interesting. What's the point of leaving the ove light on? is it to keep the stuff at a mild temperature?

ericd 7y ago
Not the OP, but guessing it's to keep it a bit warmer than room temp to help the cultures do their thing.

YeGoblynQueenne 7y ago

>> Curd Process - Boil whole milk, let it cool down a bit, and add some older curd, let it sit overnight in your oven with the light on. I learned recently that curdling milk can be achieved in many different ways: the easiest way is to leave it out of the fridge overnight (unless it's long-life). Especially in a warm environment the lactobacili in the milk itself and in the air will do their job and you'll have curdled milk in the morning. I'm guessing that's probably how the first dairy products were made, though I wouldn't want to speculate about the tastes of the first person to try curdled milk. Another way is to add some acid like vinegar or lemon. Lactobacili that curdle the milk naturally actually release lactic acid: fermentation is the same kind of anaerobic respiration that happens in our muscles when they're not getting enough energy from oxygen alone. In our case, it's our body burning the sugars in our fat to create lactic acid. The lactobacili in the milk eat lactose and turn it into lactic acid. It seems that this acid production is at least partly responsible for the curdling of milk. Another common way is to use, er, whey- the byproduct of milk fermentation. Some traditional cheeses (e.g. Greek mizithra and anthotyros) are made by keeping some of the whey in previous batches to ferment new batches. Yet another way is to use a bacterial culture especially meant to ferment milk, like kefir (please: it's pronounced keh-FEER; not like Donald Sutherland's son). In fact, I learned all this because I started making kefir at home and I got to the point I'm making cheese. It turns out- you can use kefir to make butter also, although I haen't tried it and I don't know the process well enough to describe it. Finally, there is of course the use of rennet, which is an enzyme found in the er, I think fourth stomach of ruminants, and that's used mainly in cheese making (especially for hard cheeses, it's the stuff that gives yellow cheese curds their texture). Anyway, fermentation -as in milk curdling, wine brewing, sourdough making etc- is cool.