Clarified butter ?

[coloradoclyde]

Or Ghee. I recently started cooking with it and am quite impressed. It makes fantastic fried potatoes and probably the best popcorn.

Anyone else use it?

How about some period references?

 

[tenngun]

Have made it, don't use it often. I think ghee is yak butter, smells rancid to me, and I haven't found a lot of Indian food that I really like. I never got a taste for lintels except to think they taste like black eyed peas, some thing I don't much care for eithet :redface:

 

[coloradoclyde]

I think ghee is yak butter

No...Yak butter is butter made from yak milk, popular in Tibet and parts of china.

I'm talking cow ghee. but more specifically clarified butter, I'm not talking about Indian cuisine.

Clarifying butter removes all the milk solids and increases the smoke point beyond that of most oils.

I know they had butter in the 18th and 19th centuries...but did they clarify it? :idunno:

 

[coloradoclyde]

I found one reference so far.....

Thomas Dawson’s work The Good Housewife’s
Jewel published in the year 1596, speaks of frying fritters in clarified butter.

I also found a book titled, Benjamin Franklin book of recipes, in it there is an 18th century recipe for Pain Perdu that calls for frying in clarified butter.

 

[Loyalist Dave]

Clarified butter is indeed good for many cooking applications. I like to do my venison steaks in it.

Ghee is a tad different, though for a lot of our cooking we probably wouldn't notice, but the butter is cooked longer to start to caramelize the milk solids before separating them. It's a tiny taste difference that doesn't matter unless you are going for an Indian dish where you want the added flavor of the Ghee. Some of the Ghee you find in ethnic stores also has different spices added.

I'm just bringing this up as I advise folks to check out ethnic stores, especially Indian ones, for you can find spices and tea that are much closer to what you see offered in ads in the 18th century...so IF you spotted some Ghee for sale at the same time while buying say gunpowder tea, and bought it, you might end up with a different taste than expected if you don't check the label. :shocked2:

LD

 

[coloradoclyde]

Just cooked my morning egg in some. Yum. :grin:

I make my own...I take it off the heat as soon as the bubbling subsides and it begins to froth up a second time.
I filter it through coffee filters...

 

[ddoyle]

Canada just concluded a free trade agreement (we get sugar they get Uranium :hmm: ) with India so we now have it in the grocery store. Seems like a great idea for camping. If you want another Indian treat look for Parle-G cookies! A buck for a pound of them and dam are they good in the duck blind LOL.

 

[KingofDerby]

I know they had butter in the 18th and 19th centuries...but did they clarify it? :idunno:

They did...saw a bit about it a few weeks ago...under a different name. I'll try and dig it up.

 

[coloradoclyde]

Are you thinking of Drawn butter?
Seems to be some controversy over it being melted or clarified. :idunno:

 

[KingofDerby]

Yeh, can't find when I originally read (I wish I would remember to keep notes!) but all I can now find does look like what you said.