Clarified Butter

Although butter is washed before being packaged, some whey and milk solids, among which is casein, remain in suspension in it. When food is sautéed or panfried in hot butter, the milk solids precipitate to the bottom of the pan and turn brown; often they even burn, so that sautéed food can look pitted with many brown flecks and black dots. Clarifying butter solves this problem. Clarified butter is called ghee in India and when made from ripened naturally soured cream in the North African countries, it is given the name of smen, and tastes somewhat stronger than ghee.