The Better Butter

There is a reason the French love cooking with butter: it makes everything taste better. On the Indian Subcontinent, people agree with this claim, but with one technical amendment: the magic ingredient is not butter, but clarified butter. 

For thousands of years, Indians have believed the magical nature of ghee goes beyond its luxurious taste. In Ayurvedic medicine, it has been trumpeted for its therapeutic properties: it is used to treat allergies and respiratory ailments, and it assists in the delivery of nutrients throughout the body. 

Some of these healing qualities may be a result of ghee being chemically different from common butter. While ghee, like butter, is high in saturated fat, it also lacks the water and milk solids found in its pale cousin. The result is that ghee is golden, winning on many fronts, both in terms of nutrition and practicality. You see, ghee has only trace amounts of lactose and the protein casein, providing it superior digestive powers and also making it naturally shelf-stable with a high smoke point.