Quick Microwave Ghee

I was just making dinner - an East African spinach and coconut milk dish (there's a hint for my next Food Ethnography destination), and it called for a little ghee. That wonderful, nutty clarified butter is not always cheap in the stores (though really, how often will you use it). But thanks to the wonders of modern technology, you can now make ghee as you need it in the comfort of your own kitchen!

Well duh, you could always do that. But it's so much easier in the microwave.

This recipe comes directly from Julie Sahni's Moghul Microwave, which I use eagerly and often. For this recipe, which yields 1/3 cup of ghee, all I needed was a Corningware dish with a lid and one stick of unsalted butter (don't use the salted stuff - please). Just take that stick of butter, slice it up into pats and throw it in the Corningware dish. Microwave it, uncovered, for one minute (assuming a 1000W microwave), and then covered - oh, sweet Jesus, make sure it's covered!!! - for five minutes. For about three or four minutes, it will sputter madly. That is why you need it covered, and why you CANNOT remove the lid. The sputtering is the burning off of the milk solids, which will be the brown bits in the ghee. The liquid left behind is the ghee itself.

When it's done, and not sputtering, take it out, strain it into a small container with some cheesecloth over top it, and that 's it! Easy, pain-free ghee in less than ten minutes. Unless you forgot to leave the lid on, then you probably can't say it's pain free.