re ghee:
It's used in virtually all South Asian cooking, because once the milk solids
are
skimmed off the butter's fat, the fat (aka ghee) will stay without
refrigeration.
Actually, there is a slight difference between clarified butter and ghee.
You clarify butter by heating it and skimming the resulting top layer scum
off, then draining the oil, leaving behind the water. With ghee, I believe
you get rid of the water and continue heating the butter and the top
proteins get browned and incorporated into the butterfat. So ghee would I
presume have more denatured casein than clarified butter would, but I
suppose it's close enough.
--Richard