How to make Ghee (Indian clarified butter)

I've heard Ghee (pronounced gee) called "clarified butter" but until today it's been a bit of a mystery to me. I think that's because once I saw an American chef on TV make something also called clarified butter by melting butter and skimming the solids off the top. I didn't see how that process would end up with the caramelized product my mother-in-law uses in her cooking called "ghee."

Today she showed me how she does it. Which is NOT like the western way of making clarified butter. It's more like making a browned butter sauce, the purpose being to evaporate the water from the butter and caramelize a bit for a better, more flavorful product and higher melting point.

GHEE

-- 1 pound unsalted butter.

1. Melt butter in a pan on the stove. Over low/medium low heat, boil butter for 10-15 minutes. The water in the butter will be evaporating during this time.

2. Once the water is gone, the butter will start to brown. This happens all of a sudden so don't walk away! Once the butter starts to brown, cook for a few seconds longer and take off the heat. It will continue to brown to a honey color and smell caramelized and nice. This is ghee:

Note the honey color of the actual ghee (in the scoop). The dark brown stuff in the bottom of the pan is the solids in the butter which have browned quite a bit but will be filtered out of the finished product.

3. Filter the ghee through a sieve and pour in a container while still hot. It will last a long time in the fridge.

color of finished, filtered, cooled ghee.

Tomato Onion Chutney or Vengaia chutney

Tomato Onion chutney (or Vengaia chutney)

This is a delicious and surprisingly easy chutney.

INGREDIENTS

2 medium onions
2 medium tomatoes
1 tablespoon oil
1/2 teaspoon salt (or to taste)
1/4 teaspoon tamarind paste (or to taste)

 DIRECTIONS

1. Dice the onion and tomato.

2. Fry up the onion in canola oil until it is translucent and cooked through.

3. Add tomatoes and saute, until the onion and tomatoes are cooked together.

4. Add salt and tamarind paste and grind in a blender or mixee until a paste is formed. 

Ashoka or Moong dal Halva

This is Amma's famous sweet from India. I am not a huge fan of Indian sweets but I like this one.

INGREDIENTS

1 1/3 cup moong dal
2 cups milk
2 cups water
2 1/3 cups sugar
1 1/3 cup ghee
pinch of ground nutmeg (or more to taste)

OPTIONAL ALMOND PASTE
Take one handful almonds, soak in hot water for 2 hours, peel, add milk and grind to a smooth paste. 

METHOD.

1. Take the moong dal, put it in a small pan and heat up dry over medium heat just until the beans feel hot to the touch.

2. Wash the moong dal and drain it, then add 1 1/2 cups milk 1 1/2 cups water to the moong dal. Cook in a pressure cooker for 3 whistles or until dal is cooked.

3. Put the cooked moong dal in a large stock pot. Add in the sugar and almond paste if using and heat over medium heat until the sugar melts (approx. 5 minutes).

4. Add in 2/3 cup ghee, and cook, stirring over medium heat. As it cooks, you will see it get thicker and thicker.

5. After about 10 minutes of boiling over a low heat, add in another 1/3 cup of ghee. After 10 more minutes, add in the final 1/3 cup ghee.

6. When the mixture gets to the correct consistency, sort of like a jam or hot fudge consistency (and the ghee separates from the mixture a tiny bit), take it off the heat.

7. Mix in a small amount of ground nutmeg.

8. Leave the Halva in the pot, as it cools it will get thicker and end up a thick pudding consistency and fall away from the sides of the bowl.

Amma's chana (or channa)

This is my (South Indian) mother-in-law's version of the famous North Indian garbanzo bean dish Chana Masala or Chole you see in Indian restaurants everywhere. In my opinion, it is the best. Can eat with rice but typically eaten with flat bread like chapatis or naan, can substitute whole wheat tortillas.

CHANA MASALA

INGREDIENTS:

-- 2 cups dried garbanzo beans, soaked overnight (or 7 hours) 
-- 2 small potatoes or one big one, peeled (we used red potatoes)

-- 4 tablespoons oil
-- 2 medium-sized yellow onions, peeled and chopped
-- chili powder 1/2 tsp, or to taste

-- 2 big tomatoes, chopped

-- 4-5 cashew nuts (optional - makes the sauce creamier and richer)
-- 2 tsp. salt, or to taste
-- 1 tsp. tamarind paste, or 1 lemon (Amma prefers tamarind paste, unless you will eat all the channa immediately, because if you store something cooked with lemon it becomes bitter)
-- 2 tsp. chana masala (spice mix available in Indian stores - MTR brand is Amma's favorite)
-- 1 tsp. garam masala (spice mix available in Indian stores - MTR brand is Amma's favorite)

-- 1/2 bunch cilantro, removed from stems and minced (1 big handful)

NOTE: it probably goes without saying for Indian food, but just about everything here is adjustable according to the strength of your ingredients and personal taste.

INSTRUCTIONS:

1.  Rinse and drain garbanzo beans. Put in pressure cooker with potatoes and cover with water plus an inch, cook for four whistles (you may need to cook longer if your beans are old). When cooked, mash the potato roughly up into bits. NOTE: The potato is there for a thicker consistency to the sauce -- if time is short can use canned cooked garbanzo beans and either cook the potato separately or leave out entirely.

2. Add oil to a big pan, heat up, add the onion and chili powder and saute until starting to get transluscent. NOTE: The tomato and onion mixture is what makes up the bulk of the sauce, if you want more sauce, you can scale up the tomatoes, onions, and oil. 

3.  Add tomato and cook over medium heat until the tomato and onion are cooked through, for about 10-15 minutes, or until "oil comes out on the sides."

4. Add cashews into blender and pulverise into a powder (if using), then add in the cooked onion and tomato mixture and grind to a paste/sauce.

5. Add cooked garbanzo beans and potato into the pan, along with the salt. mix the tomato/onion mixture into the chana, add garam masala, chana masala, tamarind paste or lemon, and mix. It should be a soupy consistency -- you may need to add some water to get this.

6. Boil for 10-15 minutes until flavors have melded and the consistency is a bit thicker -- you see slow, bloopy bubbles coming up in the pot.

7. Turn off the heat and add minced cilantro. The channa masala will darken a bit as it sits.

Enjoy! This is traditionally eaten with pilav, chapati, toast and butter, or heated tortillas. 

Lentil Dosa (Moong Dhall dosa or parapu dosa)

Amma made these dosas for dinner last night, she made some minus the red chili powder for Kiran and he loved them. I brought some into work today and they were much appreciated!! People asked for the recipe, I wanted it too so I asked Amma and here it is:

LENTIL DOSA

INGREDIENTS

-- 1 cup split moong dhall (can substitue in whole moong dhal) (NOT MUNG BEANS) (you can find this in most Indian stores)
-- 1/4 cup parboiled rice (this is basically just the pre-cooked "instant" rice you see on store shelves such as Uncle Ben's) (you can substitute regular rice for this if you want)

-- 2 inch knob of ginger
-- 1 teaspoon salt or to taste
-- 1/8 tsp. red chili powder
-- 1 carrot, shredded
-- 1/2 onion, minced
-- 1 handful spinach, minced

1. Put dhall and rice separately into bowls and cover with water. Soak for 30 minutes to an hour.

2. Before grinding, wash the lentils at least three times to get rid of the cloudy water.

3. First grind rice with water in powerful blender (or Indian mixee) until it is coarsely ground.

4. Add the moong dhall to the blender and grind until it is a batter. It is better if it is a little coarse. 

5. Peel the ginger and add that to the batter in the blender, blend until it is mixed in the batter.  Add water to make into a watery batter, same consistency you would want for crepes.

6. Take the batter out of the blender, mix in salt, red chili powder, carrot, onion, and spinach. (can use other vegetables if you want here, or no vegetables)

7. You fry dosas sort of like crepes, pour approx. 1/3 cup out onto a heated frying pan or griddle, then spread it out in a circular fashion. This one will be a little chunky due to the vegetable chunks in the batter. That is okay.

8. Drip a little oil on the outside edges of the dosa as it cooks to make the edges crispy. Flip the dosa when one side is finished, cook the other side until done.

9. Eat with gunpowder, sambar, chutney, whatever you want. Or just plain.

 

Ethiopian Collard Greens or Ye'abesha Gomen

So I had a craving for Ethiopian food today. I had tried to make misir wot before, and today I wanted to try that again and round out the meal with Ethiopian collard greens, a staple on any vegetarian plate (at the restaurant anyway). I tried this recipe and it turned out quite well!

from Saveur.com

INGREDIENTS

-- 4 tbsp. unsalted butter
-- ⅛ tsp. black cardamom seeds (I just used green cardamom seeds because that's all I had, will try to find black cardamom for next time)
-- ⅛ tsp. ground fenugreek (called methi in Indian cooking)
-- ⅛ tsp. nigella seeds (this is also called Kalonji seeds in Indian cooking and the ones I bought were marked as such)
-- ¼ cup extra-virgin olive oil
-- 1 large yellow onion, minced (I used the food processor for this it turned out more like a paste and next time I will try chopping finely by hand)
-- 3 cloves garlic, minced
-- 2 Thai chiles, stemmed, seeded, and minced (I left this out hoping Kiran will eat it)
-- 1 1" piece ginger, peeled and minced
-- 1½ lbs. collard greens, stemmed and cut crosswise into ¼"-wide strips (I used 2 bunches of organic collards)
-- Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste
-- White wine vinegar, to taste (I misread this and added in regular vinegar, maybe 1 Tablespoon or so? Next time will try using white wine vinegar)

INSTRUCTIONS

1. Heat butter in a 6-qt. pot over medium heat. Add cardamom, fenugreek, and nigella and cook, stirring often, until fragrant, 1–2 minutes.

2. Increase heat to medium-high and add oil; add onions and cook, stirring often, until browned, 10 minutes.  (I think the onions should be cooked until sweet, not browned too much)

3. Add garlic, chiles, and ginger and cook, stirring often, until soft and fragrant, 3 minutes.

4. Add collards, 1⅓ cups water, and salt and pepper; cover and bring to a boil.

5. Reduce heat to low and cook, stirring occasionally, until collards are tender, 50–55 minutes.

6. Stir in vinegar and serve collards hot.