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EveryCow

Butter and ghee

Ghee

Butter simmered until the water cooks away and the milk solids brown, leaving a clear golden fat that keeps for months.

Ghee is butter cooked slowly in an open pan until its water evaporates and the milk solids settle and turn brown. The clear fat is poured off and keeps for months without a refrigerator. In South Asia it is a cooking fat, a finishing spoonful on rice and dal, the fuel of temple lamps and an offering poured into the sacred fire.

What goes in

Whole cow milk: 63%63%Curd starter: 6%Butter from the churn: 25%25%Betel or curry leaf: 6%4parts
  • Whole cow milk1063%, Set as curd before churning in the village method.
  • Curd starter16%, A spoon of yesterday's curd.
  • Butter from the churn425%, What is left to cook down.
  • Betel or curry leaf16%, Some cooks drop one in at the end.

Rough parts by weight. The ring shows each input's share of the product.

Made step by step

Each drawing shows the operation for that step. Quantities and timings differ from house to house and herd to herd; this is one traditional way, in outline.

  1. Step 1: Boil Boil the milk and let it cool until it is just warm.
  2. Step 2: Set Stir in a spoon of curd and leave it overnight to set.
  3. Step 3: Churn Churn the curd with a little water until butter gathers on top.
  4. Step 4: Cook Lift the butter out and simmer it in a heavy pan, stirring now and then.
  5. Step 5: Cook Stop when the bubbling quietens, the fat is clear and the solids are brown.
  6. Step 6: Strain Pour the ghee through muslin into a clean, dry jar.
  7. Whole cow milk: 63%63%Curd starter: 6%Butter from the churn: 25%25%Betel or curry leaf: 6%
    Finished Ghee, by share.

In the fire and the lamp

Ghee appears in the Vedic hymns as the offering poured into Agni, the fire, and it is still ladled into the havan at weddings, housewarmings and temple rites. Lamps of ghee burn before household shrines and in temples across India and Nepal. Many families keep cow ghee apart for worship and use buffalo ghee or oil in the kitchen, a matter of custom rather than rule.

Two ways to make it

The older village method, often called bilona, sets whole milk as curd, churns the curd to butter and then cooks the butter. Dairies more often separate cream and cook it straight to ghee. Cow ghee is pale yellow and buffalo ghee nearly white. The browned solids left in the pan, sweet and nutty, are scraped out and eaten by children or stirred into sweets.

Where it is used

Temple lampsFire offeringsEveryday cookingSweets

The breeds behind it

GirGujarat dairy zebu whose ghee is much sought after.SahiwalLeading dairy zebu of the Punjab.Red SindhiDairy zebu of Sindh, known for creamy milk.TharparkarDesert dairy breed of the Thar.RathiMilk breed of the Bikaner country.KankrejDual-purpose breed of north Gujarat.

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Sources and further reading

About this page

Original text and drawings by the EveryCow desk, written with AI assistance and checked against the sources above. The shares are a rough, illustrative ratio, not a recipe: every family and dairy makes it differently. If we have something wrong, tell us.

Photo credits on this page

The small pictures above come from Wikimedia Commons under free licences. Some are cropped to fit.

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