[Sca-cooks] Ghee for SCA cooking

[King's Taste Productions]

There is a difference between ghee and clarified butter.  Clarified
butter has been melted, resulting in three distinct layers.  The top
layer is solidified whey proteins.  The bottom layer is water and milk
solids.  The middle layer is pure butterfat, the oil portion.  To
clarify the oil, you skim the top later off and remove the oil from the
bottom layer with a ladle or careful pouring.  The resulting oil is
higher in smoke point (the temperature it will burn at) and will keep
longer than whole butter. 

With ghee, the whole butter is melted and then slow-cooked.  The water
is released as steam and the milk solids form brown solids and sink to
the bottom, then are strained out. There is a slight difference in taste
(I think) between the two, but you're talking really fine-line heraldry
here (sorry, a reference from my days married to a Kingdom Herald) - for
all intents and purposes it is the same end product.  
$10 a quart is indeed a great price.  
Christianna



I don't know if this has been brought up before, but I thought I'd
suggest that if folks want to use clarified butter to get a higher heat
level without the smoke of melted butter, your local South Asian (aka
Indian) grocer has ghee for about $10 a quart, which is a great price.
   
  They also have a vegetarian ghee, but I haven't had any experience
with it.
  
Clarified butter (ghee) is butter without the solids, so you get the
rich butter flavor.  
   
  More authentic period-wise for Northern European cooking than olive
oil.
   
  Duriel van Hansard
  Caer Adamant


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Tom Vincent

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