If you find that normal butter isn’t quite fat enough for you, then you can always go for ghee!

Actually ghee, or any clarified butter, does have a couple of big advantages over normal (unclarified) butter. You can keep it for much longer periods of time without being in the fridge (as long as you have it in an airtight container), and you can heat it up to a much higher temperature before it starts to burn.

Ghee is widely used in Indian cooking where it imparts a deep rich slightly nutty flavour. You could substitute butter in virtually any Indian dish, but you will find that the finished dish really loses a lot of its depth. Although Indian cuisine is the most widely known use of ghee, some other pretty diverse food cultures use it as well, including Egyptian, Ethiopian and Brazilian. If you have ever eaten Moroccan ‘smen’ you might be suprised to know that it is actually aged spiced ghee.

It’s not hard to get hold of ghee, you can buy it in most bigger supermarkets and of course any Indian grocer will stock it. If you can’t find it in the shops, or you are just one of those people who likes to do absolutely everything yourself, it’s incredibly simple to make your own.

1. Take some unsalted butter (however much you want), and put in a saucepan over a medium heat.

2. DO NOT STIR THE BUTTER, let it come to the boil and keep it a gentle simmer.

3. As the butter boils it will start to separate, let it continue cooking until the bubbling starts to lessen, the sediment at the bottom starts to brown, and the liquid underneath the froth on top starts to turn an amber colour. At the same time you will notice that your kitchen starts to smell like freshly baked croissants.

4. Take the pan of the heat immediately you notice the liquid turning amber, otherwise the ghee will burn. Skim the foam off of the top and leave it to stand and cool for about half an hour.

5. Strain the liquid through muslin or cheesecloth into sterilised jars, and throw away the sediment that you are left with.

That’s it, as the ghee cools it will turn hard and a bright yellow in colour. You can keep it in sealed jars for up to a year without it needing to be in the fridge.

It’s worth bearing in mind that your ghee is only going to be as good as your butter was, so if you are going to go through all of the effort of making it, then you may as well start out with a good quality block of butter.