Clarified Butter

{I could have done a better job in skimming the milk solids. Forgive me?}

Those who don’t cooked with clarified butter don’t really know what they’ve been missing.  It’s called by different names depending on the countries you’re in (i.e. it is known as ghee in India and Pakistan). Regardless how you wish to call your clarified butter, it’s sole purpose, in my mind, is to make your dishes taste as if it has been cooked by a pro.

I do a lot of Indian cooking at home. Even though I cook curry mostly with vegetable oil for everyday meals, when it comes to special occassions or whenever I feel the need to impress, clarified butter is in and vegetable oil is out! However,  this batch of clarified butter was meant for a French dish that’s going to be up on my next post. Rather than having a super long and dreadful post, I’ve decided to split the post into two parts.

Clarified Butter

(made according to The Original Masterclass – Le Cordon Bleu – Chicken)

For those who love measurements, based on the book,  you will need 90g (3 oz) of butter to yield 50g (1.75 oz) of clarified butter. Knowing my fuss free self, I would just eyeball it. 😛

Methods:

• In a small pan, melt the butter gently over low heat without shaking or stirring the pan.

• Skim the froth from the top (or I’ve tried to pass through a small sieve), then carefully pour the clear butter into another container, leaving the white sediment in the base of the pan. Cover and keep in the fridge for up to 4 weeks.

In case you’re wondering why go through all this “trouble” to clarify the butter. The rationale behind this is clarified butter will cook at a higher temperature without burning as compared to cooking butter directly. My next recipe requires me to pan fry slices of apple until golden brown. By frying them in clarified butter, it’ll buy me time to fry the apples slices to the golden brown stage before charring them completely.