What is Desi Ghee (Clarified Butter)?

 Brown butter, clarified butter, what comes from?

 Following is recipe & its method:

Desi Ghee (Clarified Butter)

 Heat the butter over a low heat until it turns dark. So, yes, it's just boiled into dark butter. It's not mysterious at all, and it's not difficult to make.

There are many uses. Although it is simply heated, the browned butter will give off a strong aroma of roasted nuts, which can add a special flavor to desserts or Western food. Some people even think that as long as all foods are added with browned butter, the taste will be even higher. In Western food, it is mostly used to make sauces, and in baking, you can replace the ordinary butter in many recipes with browned butter, such as heavy oil cakes, bread, cookies, butter frosting for cup cakes, etc., and some desserts.

But in fact, in the process of heating the butter, there is another stage when the butter is completely melted, showing a state of solid and liquid layering. Butter in this state, as long as the solid part is filtered out, it becomes "clarified butter".

In other words, the process of heating butter to browning butter is a process of ordinary butter (clarified butter) browning butter. But what does this "clarification" mean? Isn't butter purely oil? Is there anything else in it?

We all know that butter is a kind of animal fat, which is solid at room temperature, and will turn into a light yellow liquid after heating. But unlike pure fats such as peanut oil, butter contains 16-18% water and 1-2% milk solids (basically milk protein), which makes butter much lower in smoke point than other edible oils, and often has not reached food. At the required temperature, the oil begins to burn.

In order to solve this problem, we boil the butter so that the water in the butter evaporates and the milk solids coagulate and settle. The pure oil refined in this way is called clarified butter. It has more stable properties, higher smoke point, and is more suitable for high-temperature cooking. And because clarified butter has a higher fat content, the desserts it makes will be more crisp and delicious. In other words, the butter processed in this way is suitable for high-temperature cooking and dessert.

But browning butter is the next stage of clarifying butter. Unlike clarified butter, it is no longer suitable for high-temperature frying and more suitable for "flavoring".

So in general, clarified butter is more used in Western food for high-temperature frying, and browned butter is commonly used in Western food and baking.

Then let’s talk about how to make clarified butter/brown butter:

1. Prepare an oil-free and water-free milk pan (light-colored or stainless steel pan). Cut the butter into pieces and put it in the pan. Boil the butter over low heat until it melts completely.

2. At this time, there will be a lot of milk foam on the surface of the butter, and white solid deposits at the bottom, which is the milk solids in the butter. If you want to make clarified butter, you can stop heating at this step, skim off the milk foam on the surface, and pour it into a clean, oil- and water-free container.

3. At the end of the pour, you will see the milk solid deposits at the bottom. Don't pour these into it!

Clarify the butter and make it!

Desi Ghee (Clarified Butter)

4. If you are making browned butter, continue to heat the butter after boiling. You will hear a pronounced rattling sound of the butter and smell the rich milk aroma. Gradually, the milk foam on the surface became flakes, coking and sinking to the bottom, and the solid deposits on the bottom would become more and more browned, and the milk flavor gradually changed to a fragrant roasted nutty flavor.

5. Take a spoonful of butter and take a look. If the color is still very light, it means that it is not good. If the butter scooped up by the spoon is light brown as shown in the figure below, it is in very good condition. At this time, the whole house should be in good condition. It has a very fragrant roasted nutty flavor.

6. Quickly leave the fire, skim off the foam, pour it into a clean, oil-free and water-free container to let cool, don't let the butter stay in the original pot and be heated by the residual temperature. Remember not to pour the solid deposits at the bottom.

7. Now, the browned butter is ready and can be used directly! Of course, if you want to store it, put it in an airtight container and keep it cold.

Desi Ghee (Clarified Butter)

Tips :

1. When boiling butter, the amount of butter is best not to exceed 1/3 of the pot, otherwise the butter may splash out when boiling.

2. After ordinary butter is made into clarified butter or browned butter, about 25% of its weight will be lost (mainly water evaporation and milk solids condensation filtration), so the weight needs to be estimated in advance before making, otherwise the clarification/ Browned butter may not be enough.

3. Don't need to stir or shake the pot, otherwise the milk froth will stick to the pot wall and become charred black solid. (This time I accidentally shook the pot for a while, and there was a layer of black milk foam on the side, cough cough, negative teaching materials, negative teaching materials, please don't follow me)

4. Regardless of whether it is clarified butter or browned butter, when it reaches the state, it needs to be poured into other containers to cool immediately to prevent the residual heat in the pot from overheating the butter.

5. When making browned butter, when the color in the pan becomes darker, you should always keep an eye on the state of the butter. It is best to scoop a spoonful of butter every few moments to see if there is any discoloration. Because the black precipitate at the bottom will make the whole pot of liquid look very dark, it is difficult to judge the color of butter directly.

6. After the butter is cooked, many people will use gauze, kitchen paper and other tools to filter out the solid impurities in the butter, but I think it is not necessary if it is used directly, because as long as the foam in the pot is skimmed , Do not pour out the impurities at the bottom of the pot, the butter in the container will not have many impurities. But if you want to store it for a long time, it's better to filter the butter first.