Sounds wonderful! I do have the Graza finishing oil.
Here’s more on butter storage from Gemini. I asked if I needed a ventilated butter dish.
No, a ventilated butter dish will not help with your mold issue; in fact, it will likely make it worse. [1, 2, 3, 4]
Mold spores are airborne and thrive on moisture, oxygen, and warmth. Introducing ventilation holes allows a constant stream of new mold spores and fresh oxygen right to the surface of the butter. [1, 2]
Because you are using Plugrá unsalted butter in the intense South Texas heat, you are facing a perfect storm for mold growth: [1, 2]
Zero Salt: Salt is a natural preservative that inhibits bacterial and mold growth. Unsalted dairy spoils rapidly at room temperature. [1, 2, 3, 4]
High Moisture / High Fat: Plugrá is a premium European-style butter with 82% butterfat. While it has less water than standard American butter, the high ambient heat and humidity of South Texas cause the emulsion to break slightly on the counter, creating a micro-layer of surface moisture that mold loves. [1, 2, 3]
Ambient Temperature: Butter holds its structure up to about 70°F. Once your kitchen creeps past 72°F–75°F, a butter bell will drop the butter into the water, and a standard dish becomes a breeding ground for microbes.
I added the bolding at the end. “Once your kitchen creeps past 72-75F…” Are you freaking kidding me? It’s NEVER that cool in the apartment. I leave the temp on 75 most of the time. Of course, in the kitchen it’s likely to be warmer than that.
Oh baby… we only dream of those temps here…
People tend not to realize that there is water in butter, so it behaves differently from oil and, as I understand now, ghee.
The things people don’t understand about cooking in general would fill a book. Even something as simple as the fact that not all oils/fats have the same smoke point seems to be a mystery for some. It truly is a science and I’m still a student after cooking for the last 60 years.
Besides watching lots of cooking shows and YouTube videos, I love cookbooks. I like to read them like novels, even if I never cook anything in them. The last two times I moved I had to leave so many books behind… aarrgh, I’ll never get over it.
But I brought all my cookbooks, even here to The Home.
Whole Foods sells ghee under their 365 brand. I have a 9 oz jar and IIRC that’s their middle size. I used to get it at Indian grocery stores, but the ones near my closed. I’ve not seen it at conventional groc stores around here. Despite WF’s reputation for pricy, it’s not expensive.
Others have covered how to use it. My primary use is popcorn. Which I learned about from a fellow Doper. I used to use peanut oil too. Ghee is magically better than peanut for flavor, and better than butter as a topping. At roughly 2 tablespoons (I never measure anything) per batch one jar lasts me a year, and probably costs 25 cents per batch.
I’ve lived in hot climates almost my whole life. I’ve never had a mold problem w butter or a dish. My bet is that dish has a colony on it that you can’t kill. Replace the butter dish and you’ll probably be fine, Gemini notwithstanding.
Mostly unsalted actually. The last couple years I haven’t been doing much cooking or eating at home, so the butter migrated back into the fridge. But in the ~30 years before that, no issues.
I’ll have to run some experiments with butter left out in my 77F but low humidity kitchen.
But this reflects my use. I do use it in a few other things, but 90% of the time it’s for Indian dishes. Not to mention I borrow Alton Brown’s option of removing milk solids from conventional melted butter rather than buying pre-refined.
It’s like the best parts of good drawn butter you might add to seafood. And as such, it works great with seafood options as well! I normally don’t make a lot, but it’s been fine in the fridge for a couple-to-three weeks I’d say (rather the longest it’s lasted), especially if you make it using salted butter.
OMG. You and I would have a blast looking at each other’s books. I started coIlecting cookbooks in 1983, when I was charmed by “Recipes from the Jewish Kitchens of Curaçao.” (How specific is THAT?)
I did give away about half my cookbooks when I left Indonesia, as the quantity had gotten beyond 400, and some were rather stupid. But now my collection is probably about the same size as yours.
Whenever I visit someone’s house, I look to see how many cookbooks we have in common. Something tells me we’d have some overlap (I see Joy of Cooking, and is that Silver Palate cookbook I spot? And a Pierre Franey NYT cookbook perhaps?).
ETA: I enlarged the pic and the ones I thought were SP and NYT don’t look like it after all. Still, I’m sure we have some of the same ones!
I do have the Silver Palate cookbook-- not sure if it’s visible in the picture. I’m sure we have some overlap!
As for regular books, now I only buy kindle books, so I will never have to abandon my books again. I have about 1,200 books in my kindle library. Some of them are cookbooks.
If you do any degree of baking, I like to take double the amount of butter in any recipe, brown it, then take half off as clarified butter/ghee to use later and use the other half in the recipe. This ensures you have double the nutty brown butter flavor in your baked goods and a convenient way to produce small amounts of ghee at home without additional faff. Chocolate chip cookies especially, if you’ve never tried it with double brown butter, it’s crazy good.
I use it like any neutral cooking fat, except with additional richness and buttery flavor. It’s especially good in egg dishes like fried eggs or omelettes and of course is good for Indian food. Also great for searing delicate proteins that benefit from a richer flavor like scallops/white fish/chicken/lean pork, especially if you use the pan drippings to make a sauce.
aarrgh, I’ll never get over it.