Home Made Ghee!!!

Went into the kitchen to wash the tea mug and something urged me to multitask. I tapped the Nityapuja playlist on my tab and set it down on the dining table. Great feeling to cook while some sacred chants go on in the background. Nice, clean and pure. Also helps you stay focused. Opened the freezer door and took out the grated carrots and the tin of cream. I have this habit of skimming off the cream from the curd bowl after it sets and has been in the fridge for a night. That way it is nice thick and hard and easy to scoop off. This, I transfer in to a container that goes into the freezer. Once it is full the cream is ready to become butter and thence into ghee.

I had just transferred the cream into the blender… when the familiar hum of the refrigerator stopped. Power failure at the random hour. Typical of Bangalore. The hi-tech city, silicon capital of India, in total disorder. But then that is the order of the day. Grin and bear it. I never use any heavy appliances when I am on the inverter. So, I switched my attention to breakfast.

A potato, peeled and finely diced along with the grated carrot found its place in the copper bottom frying pan. A sprinkle of salt and red chilli powder, sauté for a few minutes and the side dish was ready. The ball of dough from last night became five medium size chapattis. I was just about to dig in when the power came back on. Hmmm that was Interesting…So fast? Someone was working at the local substation.

I looked at the hot breakfast and the tin of cream and decided to work on the cream and then polish off the food. Did not seem like a wise decision at first, setting aside a hot breakfast to work on making butter. But it actually turned out for the better.

Churning cream for butter these days is simple. Popped the lid of the blender added half a glass of cold water, closed it and turned the knob. I listened for the change in sound that would tell me that the butter had separated. Two continuous minutes later the pitch of the motor changed. The first batch was done. Scooped out the butter into the frying pan, and poured the second batch of cream into the blender. Some water, stir, cap and churn. The second batch took a bit longer. Using a strainer I transferred the butter to the pan again.

Like last time I noticed the funny thing about the amount of butter that floated as bits and pieces instead of coagulating as one blob. Usually, I would have replaced the buttermilk in the fridge and churned it again later. I found that churning it chilled brought out the butter faster. But today preferred to finish the project at one go. It took another 30 minutes of churning and careful straining to get the rest of the butter out. Put the pan of fresh home-made butter on the small burner and lit the stove turning the knob to minimum.

The buttermilk went into the fridge, the blender, blades, ladles, spoons, strainer into the sink and my attention turned to breakfast. By the time I finished my breakfast the butter had melted and had started frothing. A sign that I had not removed all the water from the butter, but then it was understood. Home-made butter always had a percentage of butter milk in it. And it was not good to store such butter for long. But the whole exercise had been to make ghee all along so it did not matter.

I stirred the butter intermittently and when the frothing stabilized, turned to the blender and others in the sink. It is prudent to wash the utensils at the earliest for many reasons including avoiding the grease lines along the sides that attract bugs and insects… definitely avoidable in a kitchen. 15 mins later the rigging was in the drip rack, the sink empty, its sides brushed well with an old tooth brush that I kept there just for such use.

10 minutes and quite some stirring later, the butter had melted completely, the froth reduced, and the milk solids were settling at the bottom of the pan. The rich aroma of ghee filled the kitchen I knew it was done. Taking the pan off the stove, I set it aside to cool at its own pace and left the kitchen. Half an hour later the pan had cooled sufficiently to strain the golden yellow rich liquid into its designated container.

By the way, one good thing I learned from my mother was to have a designated container for everything in the kitchen. Particularly for stuff that can go bad if you mix things up, like ghee, oil, pickles, salt, tamarind, and a few others. They had their tins, bottles... whatever and nothing else would be stored in them. If the stocks were exhausted, they remained empty till fresh stock was brought and filled in. No other item found its way in. That way, there is no unwanted 'flavoring' or 'food chemistry' - which in some cases can be pretty unpleasant.

Anyways, the ghee filled it almost to the top, and the milk solids lay in the strainer.  I was careful not to press too hard because the solids would then find their way into the ghee ruining taste, texture and color. I left the container open for a while to let the ghee come to room temperature. And then… well! Don’t hold it against me… put the ghee into the freezer. Technically one does not have to store ghee in a “cool dark place”. If made properly, it never goes rancid. But you see, I am a bachelor and my use for ghee is as a drizzle when I have some podi’s (spicy powders) or pickles, which is not very often. And of course on special occasions and festivals use it to light a lamp for God. And Bangalore weather is fickle, who knows when a bit of moisture may creep in... Better it is in the freezer and safe rather than outside and go bad. That was the project on a Saturday morning.

Hmmmm.... Satisfying!