This completely clarified the difference between ghee, milk cake, milk residue, and the production process
Dorje was once asked to help by fellow Ganzi who came to Chengdu. Dorjee has had more than ten years of experience in the monastery, so whenever he encounters occasions that require chanting, most of them will have fellow villagers come to invite him. After Dorje returned, we secular people naturally cared most about the issue of remuneration. Ask him what is the "appearance fee"? Dorje smiled and said somewhat shyly, the host family gave me a bag of milk slag, these times can not ask for money.
Regarding the milk residue, the general understanding is the rest of the ghee, which can also be guessed from the name. The Tibetan children I met liked to eat milk residue as a snack, just like when we were children, we hid a few precious milk candies in our pockets. The daughter of another Tibetan friend, Tashi, once took a piece of milk residue out of her pocket and handed it to me, saying it was delicious. I ate a piece that was delicious and a little sour.
However, the concept of ghee, milk cake, milk residue has been very vague for so many years, only know that ghee is extracted from milk, the remaining part is milk residue - the specific and micro operation process is also half understood, yesterday when I specifically consulted Ram, finally understand the whole process in more detail, write it out and share it with you.
Playing ghee is a very hard thing, not only physical work, but also to master a certain skill. We only start from the traditional herdsmen's family handmade, and do not include mechanized assembly line work. The first is milking, which is also a technical job, and it is not my own family, I am afraid that I cannot get close to the cows, let alone other things. After the family milks the cows, they are pooled together and poured into a large pot to heat. During the heating process, it needs to be stirred constantly, which is different from our breakfast boiled milk.
Next, the most important link. The boiled milk is poured into several "Jiadong" - Jiadong, the Tibetan pronunciation of Ganzi, is a cylindrical wooden barrel used to beat ghee. It can be found everywhere in Tibetan areas. Some are engraved on the outside or inlaid with copper sheets. There is also a pure handicraft of Jia Dong, which is exquisitely styled. Although there is now a mechanized assembly line operation, Jiadong, as a living tool, still has a market within a certain range, and I still see it in the storefronts of many markets in Tibetan areas.
Jiadong, can be said to be an enlarged version of the water gun toy when we were young, or the water gun when we were a child, is a scaled-down version of Jiadong. When we were young, we made water guns by ourselves, found a bamboo pole of moderate thickness, one end kept the bamboo knot, the other end removed the bamboo knot, drilled a small hole in the bamboo knot, and then took a chopstick, wrapped some rags on the head, the water gun was ready, the chopsticks wrapped in the cloth head reached into the bamboo pole, put it in the water, pumped, washed the water into the bamboo pole, aimed at the small partner, the chopsticks were sent forward, and a column of water shot out. Jia Dong is different, except that there is no such small hole, and the bottom is completely sealed.
Half of Jia Dong will be placed in a small pit dug on the ground, so that the person who beats the ghee saves effort. After that, it is used to stir the milk in Jiadong up and down with a wooden piston until the oil and water in the milk are separated. It takes at least an hour and is hard. I have a slight understanding of this. When I was a child, a physical puzzle said that eggs can stand up, and the most important thing is to keep shaking the eggs and completely fuse the egg whites and yolks inside the eggs. I shook my arms so sorely that I couldn't be sure if they were fused—because I never stood up.
At this time, take out the piston, and there will be a layer of yellow fat on the milk, which is ghee. Fish out the ghee, put it in cool water, and knead it with both hands like dough until it can be processed into a square or round cake at will, depending on what shape the owner wants – this is the freshest ghee. Ordinary shepherd families have barrels of ghee. This bucket, I saw in the old object of Tashi's mobile phone.
The ghee used for sale is usually in barrels, or made into squares, packed in cartons, and so on. After the ghee is completely solidified, although it is easier to cut than tofu, it is not easy to change shape, so it is necessary to determine what shape it is at the beginning.
The milk in Jiadong is poured back into the pot, boiled again, and then poured into the pot the milk left over from the last time the ghee was beaten — Ram says it's like the yeast left by each steamed bun, and after adding it, the milk begins to solidify, like the tofu brain you Han Chinese make, Ram used the metaphor. Then fished out and put in cool water to cool, also according to the owner's meaning, what shape you want to make is what shape, this is the milk cake.
After the milk cake is dried, it is milk residue. So the milk cake and the milk residue is the relationship between grapes and raisins, dates and dates.
At this point, I finally understood the production process of ghee, no wonder that ghee is the essence of milk, it is true, a hundred pounds of milk can only extract five or six pounds of ghee. It is no wonder that after a few cups of butter tea, the whole body is warm, and the heat provided by a little ghee is equivalent to several pounds of milk.