Читать книгу Indian Cooking For Dummies - Monisha Bharadwaj - Страница 82

Ghee has been around in India for a few thousand years. It’s essentially butter that is clarified by heating it to evaporate any moisture and caramelize the milk solids that are then strained off. The clarifying process helps to increase the shelf life and keeps it fresher longer. In the Indian kitchen, ghee is used for shallow-and deep-frying and for drizzling on top of some dishes to make them taste all buttery and delicious.

Many people outside India believe that all good Indian cooking must begin with ghee, but this is a myth. Most Indian cooks use plant oils for everyday cooking and use small amounts of ghee for savory or sweet dishes. A biryani also tastes divine when cooked in ghee. Remember that although ghee is a great fat to cook with and tastes lovely, it has more calories than butter, so you need to be careful how much you eat. You don’t want your entire daily calorie intake to be used up by ghee!

Why not just use butter, you may be wondering. Ghee has a higher smoke point than butter, which means it won’t burn when you’re cooking those onions or spices over high heat.

When you look in the ghee aisle in your Indian store, you may see cans or cartons of two kinds of ghee:

 Butter ghee: This is the kind I describe earlier. The best ones are made with butter from grass-fed cows. They have higher levels of omega-3 fatty acids, which are good for us. It’s also called “pure ghee” or “desi ghee.”

 Vegetable ghee: This kind of ghee is made by hydrogenating vegetable oil and has a higher proportion of trans fats (which are bad for you). Vegetable ghee is much cheaper than butter ghee, which is why it’s the fat of choice for many Indian restaurants, which can claim that their food is “cooked in ghee.” The fine print written in invisible ink at the bottom of the menu says “vegetable ghee,” which really isn’t ghee at all. The word ghee has come to be loosely applied to any saturated fat, so it’s quite easy for people to be misled. Don’t buy vegetable ghee — go for butter ghee every time.

After you open ghee, store it in the fridge unless you plan to use it every day.