Ghee
Also known as: clarified butter, desi ghee
What Ghee is
Butter cooked until its water boils off and its milk solids toast brown, then strained — a pure butterfat with a nutty smell, a smoke point far above butter, and a shelf life measured in months without a fridge. Not dairy-free, though, whatever the lactose talk implies.
Plain butter simmered until the water evaporates and the milk solids — the proteins and sugars — settle and brown on the pan floor; the clear fat above them is poured off and filtered. Removing those solids removes almost all the lactose and raises the smoke point from roughly 150°C to near 250°C. Ayurvedic cooking treats ghee as the default fat, in food and in ritual, a status it has held for a very long time.
Taste and texture
Smells of toasted nuts and brown butter. Set, it is grainy-silken and pale gold; warm, it pours clear. The flavour is rounder and sweeter than any oil, which is why a spoon of it finishes a dal as often as it fries the spices for one.
Forms to buy
- Jarred cow ghee — The standard buy in Japan, typically ¥800–¥1,500 per 500 ml.
- Tinned / bulk — Larger tins for heavy users; better value per litre.
- Premium A2 / desi-cow ghee — Priced on milk from specific cow breeds; taste before assuming it matters to you.
How to cook it
Use it where its flavour is actually felt: frying whole spices for a tadka, brushing naan and roti, the final spoon stirred through dal bhat, the fat in halwa. It does not burn at curry temperatures the way butter does, which is the whole practical case for it. Keep a dry spoon in the jar and store it cool and dark; well-made ghee keeps for months refrigerated and weeks easily at room temperature.
Buying note
Typically ¥800–¥1,500 per 500 ml in Japan. The ingredient list should say butter or milk fat and nothing else. And check you are not holding 'vegetable ghee' — that is vanaspati, partially hydrogenated fat, a different product high in trans fat with none of ghee's flavour.