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Ghee - how to make it . . .
Joanna Urwin • September 8, 2019
Ghee - pure gold, healthy and delicious
Ghee is made by cooking butter to separate the oil from the milk solids and water leaving you with a golden, healthy fat that has a very high smoking point when cooking with it. It helps to increase your agni - or digestive fire - and helps sustain healthy microbes in the gastrointestinal tract to promote effective digestion and elimination. It nourishes all the tissues of the body, including the nervous system, helping to calm the body.
Recipe for making home-made Ghee
Recipe from Sharon Jackson of Ayurveda Lifestyle
Ghee is just cooked butter so it’s not a complicated business. But unless you know the stages the butter goes through it is very easy to ruin it usually by burning it or sometimes by undercooking it. So this ‘recipe’ is more an explanation of the process of turning butter into ghee and the various stages that it passes through. It’s impossible to say how long the process takes because it depends upon the pan you use, the heat source and the amount of butter. But as a general rule of thumb allow something like 20 to 30 minutes, be very patient and do not leave it for a moment. Watch the whole process.
1. You need a heavy bottomed pan – something with a heat-conducting base. This makes the heat is spread evenly on the base of the pan.
2. It is difficult to make a small quantity of ghee – I advise at least 6 bars of organic unsalted butter or preferably 8.
3. Put the butter in the pan and melt it on full heat. Once the butter is melted a thick, creamy whitish froth will appear on top – do not skim this off.
4. Turn the heat down to half so that the butter keeps on a lively simmer and the froth will gradually boil away – usually in 5 -10 minutes.
5. Once the froth has gone you just have yellow butter simmering away – after a while the colour begins to very subtly change and gradually becomes darker with small whitish fat solids clumping together.
6. The cooking process is now separating the fat solids from the healthy oil. The fat solids gradually sink to the bottom of the pan. You can check whether this is happening by running a wooden spatula along the base of the pan once. You can feel if there is something sticking. As soon as the sticking begins turn the heat down again to a gentle simmer – about half again. If the solids burn the ghee is ruined. You can keep checking periodically with the wooden spatula but don’t stir it.
7. As the ghee gently cooks, you will notice that the sound of the ghee cooking is suddenly much quieter. The sound of the bubbles come less from the base of the pan and more from a second, clearer transparent froth that gradually begins to appear on the surface.
8. Keep cooking gently for a few more minutes until the ghee is a beautiful clear amber colour, which means all the fat solids have separated out.
9. Don’t leave the ghee in the pan to cool as it will keep cooking and eventually burn. Strain the ghee immediately through a metal colander lined with two layers of kitchen roll.
10. Put ghee in glass jars and allow to completely cool and set (usually overnight) before you put the lids on.
Enjoy!
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How a stack of wooden pallets helped me to tap into a higher state of consciousness by following my heart
Today I was treated by my mum to a beautiful lunch in a relatively posh restaurant in Bergerac. I haven't eaten out in a while mainly because I just enjoy simple, tasty, home-made, ayurvedic-style cooking but today was a treat. When we talk about 'nourishing ourselves' it doesn't always have to be with rice, vegetables and beans - which have been the main staples of my recent ayurvedic diet. Today I was nourished differently - I was cooked for in a restaurant and I was treated - and my soul was nourished - thank you mum :-) However, a few months ago I don't think my digestive system would have coped with what I ate at lunch time as well as it did today and that's because I have been increasing my agni. Agni is your 'digestive fire' and the aim of an ayurvedic diet is to increase your digestive fire so that you can burn - or digest - the food you put into your body. You are not what you eat - you are what you digest ! The way we increase our agni depends on our dosha. My dosha is currently Vata which means my digestive fire does not like to be cooled down with cold drinks, salads or ice-cream. My body is also not great with tomatoes so the starter in the 'menu du jour' would normally have been a bit of a challenge - cold roast tomato soup with parmesan icecream - wow! Delicious! The main course was 'aiguielletes de canard' - a generous amount of them with a fruit sauce and a zabayonne de pommes de terre. Again - such different, stimulating tastes. The dessert was a Pannacotta . Normally served in a small dish, this was presented as a thin layer on a large plate - again... delicious but cold, sweet and creamy. Although all three courses were obviously served separately, my stomach received all three within an hour, so really I now have quite a complicated mix of foods in my belly which I am grateful that my agni is strong enough to deal with as I have no signs of indigestion or bloating - things seem to be burning well! However, it will be a simple soup for me tonight as everyone's agni is always weaker in the evenings - which is why if you are going to treat yourself - or be treated - best make it a lunchtime treat when your digestive fire is at its strongest between 12 and 2pm. Bon appetit!
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