vegetarian ghee

I'm always using this canned vegetarian ghee for cooking dhal etc.
Now my asianmarket (who is the best selected asianmarket around) is sold out with this for more than two month. And the owner only gives me a shrug when I ask him.

Do you know how to do it by yourself?

Do I use margarine instead of butter?

Thanks for your help.

You can use vegetable cooking oil instead. It's good for your health.

You can make Ghee at home?
Take a full creame milk, boil it and let it cool. Now take out the upper the upper thick layer and store it in refrigirator, do this for few days and keep storing.
Later taking this bowl full of thick upper layer and put it in a shallow pan and heat..slowly after many boils you'll get the ghee in liquid form, take it out and store.

My mother also makes it with full cream curd but dunno how, come to my home and taste and learn.

Yes, you can make ghee at home by cooking unsalted butter, until the solids sink to the bottom and turn golden brown, then strain through several layers of cheese cloth. BUT, I believe the request was for vegetarian ghee, which I've not heard of before.

Was there a listing of ingredients on the can you used to purchase???

Vegetarian ghee is just vegetable oil. Use olive oil if you can; it's healthiest.

Margarine will work, too. Not butter, if it's "vegetarian" you want.

Vegetable ghee is Hydrolysed Vegetable Oil (Hydrolyses converts Unstaturated fatty acids to transfatty acids) and is not healthy. Trans fatty acids intake is found to be associated with higher risk of coronary artery disease.

arrrggggghhhh snain, that sounds not really healthy...

thanks I'm only a lacto-ovo-vegetarian. I can switch to the "real ghee" (made from butter).

But I thought the vegetarian one was healthier because it has low colesterol and not so much calories and it is cheaper...

Thanks for your help and recipes.

I tried to buy normal butter ghee in Morisson's in Chorley yesterday and they didn't have it. I used olive oil instead.

I also used a bulb of garlic, a quarter of a pack of red tikka seasoning, several dried cloves, and a few measures of fish masala seasoning, cumin, turmeric, mustard seeds, frozen chopped coriander, two fresh chillies, and a dollop of "Aunt May's Bajan Pepper Sauce" and never noticed the difference.

hehe interesting comment from Rab about not noticing! It will interest some of you to know, if you don't already, that most indians cook in some form of oil, not necessarily in ghee! Though I must say the difference is readily noticeable to most indians!

I might notice a difference if I had the same dish made both ways.

In response to above post, hydrolysed oils are not hydrogenated and do NOT create trans fats. Hydrolysis cleaves the glycerol from the fatty acids attached in oils. Hydrolysis creates soaps (a kind of surfactant)and glycerol.

using milk would not make it vegetarian.

and as for using margarine, you might as well just melt some plastic.

and yes, I know this thread is 8 years old. maybe the OP didn't return because she used margarine.

Interesting old thread, now revived.

I think we're running into the difference between (Western) vegetarian and (Indian) pure vegetarian: Yes, ghee is vegetarian. However, it isn't vegan, so not "pure veg." (An additional problem is Indian "pure veg." doesn't equal veganism. It makes it quite hard to pinpoint between questioners and respondents, and then internationally.)

I know of no replacement.* I suppose use plant oils instead, indeed.

(It's the same as with do you eat butter or cheese or not. Ghee is just clarified butter, your grannies in the western world probably knew perfectly well how to make and use it. If you don't want to eat -- non-plant based -- butter or such products, don't eat ghee.)

* Though I suppose it may well have been produced by now for that market. Never heard of it, though. I think sort of the definition of what is real ghee precludes it from being vegan. It's clarified animal butter.

To add to that, ghee will certainly go with an Indian "pure veg." diet, btw. So there are indeed nuances there, and the latter isn't strictly vegan.

... So anyway to get back on this thread from 2003 (and I wouldn't expect them to read along anymore, but then who knows), I suppose the poster got themselves a little confused with their terminology:

Ghee isn't necessarily vegetarian, any more than regular butter would be. (Well, so it is, but it isn't vegan. Conversely, I guess you could clarify any plant butter. Although a dislaimer here: I don't know if the technique would work only or best with regular milk fats.)

To make ghee or clarified butter yourself, look around on the web some or consult some cookbooks for either term. It's not difficult, nor is it a uniquely Indian technique. It mostly just involves heating and thereby separating the components.

I suspect producing vegetable oil or butter is a rather different proces though; which is why I doubt one could produce ghee this way.

But as usual, I'll gladly hear otherwise.

Vanaspati Ghee or Vegetable ghee, is pure veg, made by with hydrogenated permitted vegetable oils.