By Suganya Sundar
When shot a question of origin of ghee the kids of the generation might tell its from the stores. Not particularly wrong but there is an emotion involved in some process nostalgic when it’s from one’s own childhood. I have seen ghee made from scratch except for the milk, we did not have cows. Got milk from our milkman ( there is still this designation in small villages where packet milk haven’t overtaken). The raw milk is boiled till it forms the milk layer which is slightly yellow and has texture of moon when it’s cooled. While warm a little bit of old curd is added to the milk, mixed well and left overnight for the bacteria to take over. The next morning once the lid is removed the magic had already happened and the milk is turned into curd. The top milk layer and some more white curd is the taken into a repurposed dabur honey bottle and manually shaken for a certain time in a regular rhythmic move. The fat is separated leaving butter and buttermilk. The buttermilk is enjoyed immediately while the butter is put in a box and refrigerated. The process is repeated for several days until the butter box is full. Then comes the special day when the butter is put to melt over low heat for the butter to clarify and become ghee. The whole house fills with the fragrance of ghee to which young drumstick leaves are added to be fried which adds more aroma to the ghee. The residue is settled down while ghee stands still. A bit of salt is added . The drumstick leaves are removed once fried and ghee is filtered and the residue is mixed with rice and distributed one ball per person in the household along with the fried drumstick leaves . Ask me where does ghee come from.
By Suganya Sundar
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