Butter

I've never heard of ghee, so your post was very informative, @John Brunner. Thanks for that. I probably won't ever do anything with the information but it's interesting, anyhow.

 

The things people have learned to do with some basic food stuffs is fascinating.

If you read about real ghee in India, it's completely different. They heat cream, add yogurt, and let it sit for 8-16 hours. Then they churn butter out of it. Then they follow the process I outlined to make ghee out of the cream/yogurt butter they made. It sounds like something I would do, just to over-complicate things. But they also just start with purchased butter.

The main reason to use ghee is its high smoke point...480°F...and its flavor.

Here's a reference chart that shows that only avocado oil has a higher smoke point. And ghee has that nutty flavor from the browned solids:

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I've made ghee from Kerrygold and can tell you that structurally it behaves as all other stick butters. But as I said, I really don't like a lot of butter on my food so I've not done a taste comparison.

My mother used to put that stuff on toast as though it were peanut butter. As A kid I found it to be off-putting...they thought of eating all that grease. *shudder* She was British...lived outside of London during WW2. I always ascribed her zeal for the greasy stuff to wartime shortages, but don't really know for certain. When I put it on toast & such, it's always the thinnest of layers.

I wonder if anyone here who likes butter has ever noticed a difference between brands. Is Walmart brand the same as Kerrygold, or can you tell a difference in quality & taste?

 

I recall you and I briefly discussing ghee and using the residual solids. I believe you said you were not "the laddoos," if I recall correctly. (I apologize if I just misspoke.) I just commented that I have a slight aversion to butter because my British mother ate it as though it were jelly. I won't eat dry toast, but I only use a scant amount of butter. Funny how some childhood imprints have a lasting affect.

Now you have me wondering about the Amish butter I've been buying. I just discovered it is made by ALCAM Creamery, and I found ALCAM's website, but because they are a creamery (not a dairy), I'm not gonna find info about the cows' diets for this butter. Maybe I'll send ALCAM an email and see what they say.

I don't recall why I started making ghee. Likely some cooking article I dropped into, and I decided to add it to my repertoire. Now I always have a jar of it on the counter. I rarely use any other cooking oil besides olive oil (except I recently discovered duck fat, but that's another story.)

 

Lazy.

 

First, I think the OP was using "sweet" in the vernacular, to wit:
John: "Did you hear that Beth won the lottery?"
Boris: "Sweet!"

Second, you made me go look, and I learned that the butter we have in America is made from pasteurized fresh cream rather than cultured or soured cream the way European butter is created, making their butter tart. "Sweet" is a comparative thing, not a "sugar added" thing.

So none of us in the states are likely to have butter in our homes that is not sweet. I had no idea.

 

No, I just got so caught up in my own newfound/fleeting/internet intelligence that I overlooked that part of your comment.

So in the continuing spirit of "I just Googled so my prowess is unassailable" I am happy to inform you that the main difference between salted and unsalted butter (besides taste) is the shelf life: 5 months for the former, and 3 months for the latter. Depending on brand of butter, there is approximately 1 1/4 tsp of salt per pound, or a little more than 1/4 tsp per stick, or 1/32 tsp per TB. By way of reference, that's 1/6 of a pinch--or 1/12 of a dash--per TB.

I have never noticed any difference between salted and unsalted (which really should be called "nonsalted"), but my palate is not that refined. And eating an American diet, I gotta believe that my ability to detect most amounts of salt has been long gone (although I bet I'd notice the absence of it).