Fat is a foodie issue

Science now tells us that all the old warnings about dairy fat were overstated. Start enjoying butter and ghee!

- VIR SANGHVI

Each time I go to Kolkata, I bring back some Gobindobhog rice. Gobindobhog is among the most celebrated rice varieties of Bengal, loved by people who know how to enjoy their rice.

My wife cooks the Gobindobhog at home with lots of ghee, adding the ghee just as the water starts boiling. And sometimes I add a little more ghee myself when she serves the rice. It is so delicious that you really don't need to add very much more. (Bongs make Khichdi with Gobhindobhog which is also delicious but I like the flavour of the rice without too many spices.)

Would I enjoy the Gobindobhog without the ghee? Possibly. Do I enjoy it much more with the ghee added? Absolutely: you bet!

So, it is with butter and other varieties of rice. When I was a child I saw them add butter to rice in Iran and fell in love with the combination of butter and rice. Even now, the best basmati is described as having a buttery aroma. Lots of the hybrid basmati that we get these days (as distinct from the traditional strain) does not have much of the buttery aroma, so, I add a little butter to make the rice come alive.

The truth is that dairy fat improves nearly everything. Put a little butter on a hot kulcha and suddenly the flavour of the kulcha will soar into another dimension. I find that the best partner for an idli is podi mixed with liquid ghee. (There are competing claims made for coconut oil or gingelly oil but I am a ghee guy.)

It is not just Indians who recognise the power of dairy fat. The French have founded an entire cuisine on it. Fernand Point, the mentor to the chefs who created nouvelle cuisine, once said "Butter, butter, give me butter, always butter."  And before that, there's the famous remark often attributed to Auguste Escoffier, the greatest French chef of the 20th Century, "The three great secrets of French cuisine are butter, butter and butter."