clarified and evaporated butter, made from cow or water-buffalo milk, used for cooking in India, especially the north. (The full name is usli ghee, and the spelling ghi is sometimes used.) The butter is melted and then simmered long enough to boil off all the water, during which time it takes on a nutty taste. It is used especially, but not exclusively, for cooking meat, and it is essential for many Indian dishes.
Ghee has considerable religious importance, being so pure that the addition of a bit of it is often enough to upgrade the status of food.
The original reason for making ghee, a name derived from the Sanskrit ghrta, was to make butter keep in the Indian climate. Ghee remains good for several weeks at room temperature, and for months in the refrigerator.
Vanaspati ghee is a vegetable shortening, made from highly saturated oils (e.g. coconut, cottonseed, rapeseed, palm), hydrogenized, and processed to look, smell, and taste like usli ghee.
Samneh (samn, samna) is the name given to clarified butter in the Middle East and the Arab world generally. Anissa Helou (1994) describes how it is made in the Lebanon:
Samneh is made from butter that has been boiled until the fat in the pan is as transparent as a tear (dam'at el-eyn). It is then taken off the heat and left to settle before being carefully strained through a fine sieve into sealed containers where it will keep for a year or more.
It turns up in N. Africa as smen, sometimes flavoured with herbs, or spiced, and/or aged. Ethiopia also has a spiced version, nit'r k'ibe.
Alan Davidson was a distinguished author and publisher, and one of the world's best-known writers on fish and fish cookery. In 1975 he retired early from the diplomatic service—after serving in, among other places, Washington, Egypt, Tunisia, and Laos, where he was British Ambassador—to pursue a fruitful second career as a food historian and food writer extraordinaire. Among his popular books are Seafood of South-East Asia, North Atlantic Seafood, and Mediterranean Seafood. In 2003, shortly before his death, he was awarded the Erasmus Prize for his contribution to European culture.
Helou, Anissa (1994), Lebanese Cuisine, London: Grub Street.
