Sunday, September 27, 2015

Trying out Tava Ghee: Butter Coffee and Cooking with Ghee

I really first heard about ghee when the trend of butter tea and butter coffee came about. Ghee is a type of clarified butter that originated from India. It's widely used not only in cooking but also ayurvedic medicine and hence, ripe for the health trends of the western world. The preparation of ghee is slightly different than clarified butter (to make ghee, the butter is simmered along with milk solids until they caramelize) and gives it a nutty aroma and taste.

Anyway, I got curious about butter coffee because a fellow blogger Eating LA had been taking it and told me she felt more energetic throughout the day and that butter coffee actually tasted pretty good. So when Tava Life Provisions offered to send me some ghee to try, I took them up on the offer so I can try butter coffee!

Tava ghee

Making butter coffee is pretty simple, here's the directions I got from Eating LA: Brew a strong cup of coffee. Add 1 tablespoon of ghee, and 1 tablespoon of coconut oil. Blend. Add vanilla or cinnamon if you like.
So, Tava actually has different flavors of ghee! I used their Vanilla Bean Ghee for my butter coffee so I didn't even need to add any vanilla! The butter coffee didn't taste as weird as I had expected. In fact, it was smooth and just a bit rich - drink it quick, though, it starts to get weird as the coffee gets cold and the ghee separates. But before that, the butter coffee is easy to drink for your caffeine and energy fix in the morning!
Plus, ghee is supposed to increase your metabolism - so hey, if you can reason your coffee fix as a diet drink, why not?


The other flavors they sent me were Green Chili ghee and Himalayan Pink Salt ghee.
Tava ghee

Cooking with ghee is supposed to be better than butter. For one, ghee can withstand higher temperature than butter. Ghee is also shelf-stable so you don't need to refrigerate it (up to 9 months) so it's always soft. Ghee is also lactose free, high in vitamins, and supposed to help aid digestion.

The green chili ghee adds just a hint of spice and was handy to have when I was feeling lazy but hungry! I had some shrimp in the fridge and I just simply sauteed it with the green chili ghee. Nothing could be easier, yet thanks to the ghee my shrimp was just flavorful enough. This will be a nice one to spread on toast as well.
Tava ghee
Of course, you're probably not as lazy as me, so you might want to follow the recipes on Tava's website instead. 

2 comments:

Unknown

Where can you purchase ghee? I would be interested to try but might try butter coffee first in the morning....

gourmetpigs

Hi Brendan, I'm not sure where you can buy it where you live (although I bet Whole Foods has some), but you can definitely get some from Amazon! :)

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