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EveryCow

Butter and ghee

Makkhan (white butter)

Soft unsalted butter churned from curd by hand, eaten fresh on flatbreads and loved in the stories of the young Krishna.

Makkhan is the white, unsalted butter of the North Indian and Punjabi household. It is churned from set curd rather than sweet cream, so it has a gentle tang. A rope wound round a wooden churn is pulled back and forth until soft lumps of butter float up. It is eaten the same day, melting on hot rotis, parathas and makki di roti.

What goes in

Set curd: 71%71%Cold water: 21%21%Ice: 7%3parts
  • Set curd1071%, Whole milk curd, a day old.
  • Cold water321%, Added during churning to help the butter gather.
  • Ice17%, In summer, to keep the butter firm.

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: Set Boil whole milk, cool it to warm and set it as curd overnight.
  2. Step 2: Serve Pour the curd into a tall pot with a little cold water.
  3. Step 3: Churn Pull the cord of the wooden churn back and forth until butter rises in soft flakes.
  4. Step 4: Shape Gather the butter with a cupped hand and press it into a ball in cold water.
  5. Step 5: Serve Serve it at once on hot bread, keeping the buttermilk for drinking.
  6. Set curd: 71%71%Cold water: 21%21%Ice: 7%
    Finished Makkhan (white butter), by share.

The butter thief

In the Braj country around Mathura and Vrindavan, the child Krishna is Makhan Chor, the butter thief, who raided the clay pots that the cowherd women hung out of reach. Paintings and songs show him with a fist of butter. At Janmashtami, the Dahi Handi custom re-enacts the theft: young men build human pyramids to break a pot of curd and butter hung high over the street.

Churned at dawn

The churn, called madhani or mathani, is a wooden dasher turned by a cord in a tall clay or steel pot. Early morning churning was a daily sound in village homes. What remains after the butter is lifted is lassi or chaas, drunk through the day. Makkhan that is not eaten fresh is saved up and cooked down to ghee at the end of the week.

Where it is used

On rotis and parathasWith sarson da saagTemple offering to Krishna

The breeds behind it

HarianaDual-purpose breed of Haryana and western Uttar Pradesh.SahiwalPunjab dairy breed behind much farmhouse butter.RathiRajasthan milk breed of the dry north-west.

Also part of it, and being written: Mewati cattle (Also called Kosi, kept in the Mewat and Braj country.).

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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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