HOW TO MAKE GHEE

Hemalatha Ganesan shares her authentic Ghee preparation directly from India. This recipe is suitable for gluten-free and lactose-free diets. Enjoy!

Mrs Hemalatha Ganesan, our special guest contributor from India is a former Bharatanatyam (classical dance), Veena (classical music instrument), authentic south indian vegetarian cooking and baking teacher!

We are very grateful for her contribution

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INGREDIENTS

• 500 gm of unsalted (very important) organic cow’s butter – ideally from a local producer
• 1 gm rock salt

“We have used cow’s butter in the preparation as it’s colour and smell and taste is superior to buffalo or goat’s butter.”

I told you this was an authentic recipe! Had you ever come across buffalo butter before? Ayurvedic books confirm that cow’s milk is the healthiest milk and butter made from it is the best butter. Hence ghee has wonderful healing properties. Ayurveda recommends buffalo’s milk for inducing sleep, goat milk for tuberculosis and camel milk for curing accumulation of water in abdomen and cirrhosis of liver.

Anyways, back to our recipe…

METHOD

• Take the butter and place it into a bottom heavy pan (this is for resisting the heat to the boiling point). The butter should be at room temperature.
• The tip here is to use a 3 liter capacity pan to boil, as the butter will melt and rise.
• Keep the stove in medium flame (or heat) throughout the boil. Use a ladle with a scoop to help the butter melt by mixing it.
• As the butter keeps boiling, bubbles will rise the liquid.
• In about 8 minutes white froth will form on the periphery. Turn the stove off.
• Sprinkle about 1 gm of rock salt. This is done to absorb the excess water from the butter and to give ghee it’s grainy texture.
• Let it cool for 15 mins, then filter. For this purpose we’ve used a strainer. Do not consume the froth as it’s not good for digestion.
• Next, pour ghee in a glass container.

• Do not close the container which has the ghee while it’s hot, as it would lead to water condensation.

• Store at room temperature. Ghee can be kept more than 10 years. In fact like a good wine the older the better the medicinal properties. It will keep longest if stored in a dark room in a well seemed container.
• Et voila ready to use in all your recipes, mixed with turmeric and over steamed veggies, baked sweet potato or served with jam on your morning toast !

Thank you Chandra and family for sharing this wonderful ghee recipe with us ! We look forward to tasting more of you healthy dishes 🙂

Related links:

• You can read all about the health benefits of ghee in this article.

Elena Beurdeley-Kuerten
Ayurvedic Consultant – DipALN, DipAMT (Ayurveda)
The Ayurveda Centre – Athens
www.theayurvedacentre.com