![]() Until recently, asli or pure ghee was the only cooking medium used in North India. However, nowadays shortening and oils are also used in place of ghee. Indian vegetable shortening or vanaspati ghee has a light lemon colour, grainy texture, and a faint nutty-lemon aroma. It is almost identical in appearance and flavour to pure ghee. Indians have used ghee for centuries and would never accept a substitute unless it reproduced the good taste of butter as closely as possible. Therefore, Indian vegetable shortening, a product of highly saturated oils such as coconut, cotton¬seed, rapeseed and palm, is not only hydrogenated, but is also specially processed to look, smell and taste almost like ghee. The growing awareness of calorie maintenance and the possible harm in consuming excessive quantities of highly saturated fats lead many Indians to cook food in substi¬tuted unsaturated oils. For vegetarians, ghee is the primary source of nutrition. The Brahmins consider it brain food with supernatural powers, and attribute the development of one’s intelligence to it. Even today, young Hindu children, particularly males, are given a spoonful of ghee every day to sharpen their intelligence. The old Brahmin ritual of feeding a newborn infant a spoonful of ghee within minutes of his birth is still followed by all Indians. Kashmiri cooking, known for its delicate preparations and haunting flavours, uses ghee as one of its chief ingredients. ![]() Cooking oils are of different types and a good variety of cooking oils are available in the local market, which are extensively used in cooking Indian foods. Recently, due to the changing food habit many vegetable and low calorie cooking oils are coming in market that are good for heart and for balancing human digestive system. |