Sunday morning.  8 am.  Still in bed. I start to focus properly on the lunch I am to cook for friends arriving at 1 pm.  I had got very organised the night before and made chocolate cake for one guest whose birthday it was. That was going to be dessert with the addition of fresh berries and a dollop of cream and salted caramel sauce with a hint of cardamon. My lamb for minty lamb curry was marinating in the fridge and just have to make my leeks with split yellow peas, a chopped salad and steam rice in the simmering basket of the TM5. I plan to make the starter of creamy courgette soup with my guests on their arrival. The addition of freshly roasted and pounded cumin seeds gives that soup a lovely Indian flavour. All good till I realise I have no ghee and the lamb takes an hour to cook in ghee and it’s a Sunday morning so no shops till at least 11 am!

But hey, I own a Thermomix so no panic. I have full faith that my hero will rescue me. Warm and cosy memories come to mind of aunts getting up early to make ghee on the stove, making sure they kept an eye on it in case it burned.  I never considered making it before as I am too easily distracted and haven’t the patience to watch over butter cooking.   A quick google and it transpires that it is so ridiculously simple to make in the Thermomix and I am kicking myself for having previously spent a fortune on organic ghee at £8 a bottle.  I know, crazy, right?

So, still in bed I continue google-research into butter.  I discover that Kerry Gold butter is made from the milk of cows grass fed for 312 days in the year.  I can live with the fact that 3% of the grain Kerry Gold feed the cows on for the 53 winter days may contain GMOs as they seem to love their cows so much.  Anyway, that’s the only unsalted butter in the fridge! And very nice ghee their butter makes too!

This is all you do:

Melt 500g of  butter for 1 hour/Varoma/Speed 1. Strain through muslin into a glass jar. Cool and then store with a lid in the pantry of the fridge.

That’s it!  I use a 250g pat of butter.  Whether or not it makes a difference, I decide that as the amount is halved, I should also reduce the cooking time (45 minutes).

Perfect, golden, clean tasting ghee! So, DON’T BUY GHEE, BUY A THERMOMIX!

I will post the recipe for minty lamb that I made in the TM5 using the ghee once I have written up the adapted, simplified and absolutely delicious version.  In the meantime, for some interesting esoteric facts about ghee, click here!