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23 January 2008 re: clarified butter |
| Note: We found ourselves referring to this page so often that we added clarifying butter to the appendixes for Domestic Intelligence. |
| Sampson: |
| What the heck is this "clarified butter" in the big curry noodle recipe? |
| m-c: |
| Clarified butter is butter with the protein foam and the milk solids removed. When they're gone, what's left (a) doesn't go rancid without refrigeration and (b) doesn't burn when you use it to fry things. |
| Sampson: |
| Sounds too good to be true. How do you "clarify" it? |
| m-c: |
| The easiest way is in your microwave, but be sure to work slowly and gradually because the easiest way to make a big mess of your microwave is to become inattentive when clarifying butter. |
| Put the butter straight from the refrigerator into a */deep/* microwave-proof bowl. To clarify one stick ( ¼ pound = ½ cup) of butter you should use a deep bowl that holds at least two cups, and you need to work slowly. |
| Nuke the butter on the setting one notch above "defrost" until it separates into three layers, foam on the top, clarified butter in the middle, milk solids on the bottom. |
| Let the bowl stand till it's no longer at all warm to the touch. |
| Put it in the refrigerator. |
| Sampson: |
| OK, cold, hot, cold. What's next? |
| m-c: |
| After the bowl in which you microwaved the butter is completely cold, use a spatula to scrape off the top foamy layer and put it in a different bowl, which we'll call bowl #2. |
| Scrape off the clarified layer and put it into a container with a cover. If you have done a perfect job, this clarified butter does not need to be refrigerated. Myself, I'm not a perfect-job person, so I store mine in the refrigerator. |
| Put the congealed foam from bowl #2 back into bowl #1, with the milk solids at the bottom. Return bowl #1 to the microwave and nuke it at the same low temperature till the foam and milk solids have caramelized and smell like the butterscotch of the gods, usually 2-3 minutes. |
| Use the caramelized leavings to spread on bread or crumble over cottage cheese. Sugar or salt it, up to you. There's not enough to share. Keep it your own little secret. |
| Sampson: |
| It sounds like a lot of work for a very small treat. |
| m-c: |
| Oh, but the treat is just a secondary result. The main deal is the lovely clarified butter, which you can now use to fry up anything you like. |
| If I haven't convinced you that you'd like to make it yourself, you can buy high‑quality clarified butter under the name "ghee," which is its name in one of the 600 languages spoken in India. King Arthur Flour's website carries Purity Farms, the brand I use when I don't have my own on hand. But the boughten version doesn't come with the caramelized treat. |
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