I usually make ghee at home but on one occasion I needed a whole lot of ghee and bought a tin of Amul ghee. I thought that Amul was one of the known national brands and has been around for so long. So, their product would be very reliable. I brought home the tin, opened it and transferred to a glass container. My first observation was that the ghee was solid even though the temperature was 40C (it was peak summer). I thought that maybe it needed some help to melt.
I put some ghee in a small bowl and put it on top of a warm cooker for melting (which is how I melt ghee most of the times). It still wouldn’t melt. I took a generous spoonful and put it on hot rice. Only the bottom of the dollop of ghee touching the hot rice melted. That got me thinking. I thought that maybe the ghee had to be clarified further. I thought that it was a little underdone. So, I poured the entire ghee in a vessel and started to clarify at a very low temperature. After 15 minutes of heating, it started to burn. So, I turned off the stove and let it sit. There was no smell of ghee while heating.
Usually, my whole house smells of ghee when it is being made. I checked back after about an hour. I had started with a yellow looking fat that smelt slightly of ghee. What I had after heating on very low heat for 15 minutes and letting it sit for 1 hr was a solid white odorless lump which has no resemblance with ghee in anyway. It scared me. What exactly was this thing? What was this thing that was I going to feed my children? I threw the entire "ghee" away and promised myself to never ever go near another Amul product.
So, readers beware of Amul "ghee". It is not what you think it is. It is some kind of colorless, odorless fat flavoured like ghee. At Rs.375 for one liter, it is not even cheap. Shame on Amul for being such a fraud. If you are reading this review and care about yours and your family’s health, don’t touch Amul products with a barge pole.