In India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, and other Southeast Asian countries, ghee — a type of clarified butter — is the consummate staple. Sold everywhere, it is used as the base for almost all cooking, and jars of it are even passed down through generations.

“It’s also considered a medicine,” says Lee Dares, a former high fashion model turned ghee entrepreneur. “That’s why people just eat it straight.”

That’s what Dares’ hopes customers will do once they get their hands on a jar of Lee’s Ghee.

The Toronto native is formally debuting her line of local, hand-made artisanal ghees at the One of a Kind Show, on through March 29 at the Direct Energy Centre Exhibition Place.

But already, since she rented space in an industrial kitchen a few months ago, and began simmering, skimming and straining her own, her business has taken off.

Jars of Lee’s Ghees, all capped off with beautiful, used saris, have been making the rounds through Toronto’s foodie circles via the Healthy Butcher and Fresh City Farms, an organic and local delivery service.

Dares, 24, who once strutted catwalks in Europe and Asia, is excited to introduce her certified organic product, which she discovered after retiring from modelling four years ago.

She quit the modeling business at 20. After six years, she’d gone as far as possible in modelling, she says (she was scouted as a 14-year-old while strolling Queen St. W.). Instead, she began learning about Ayurveda, the traditional Indian medicine and lifestyle linked to yoga, while living in New York City.

On a seven-week study internship in India, she learned the time-honoured past of ghee, a dietary fat, which Dares says, is “very important” to looking, feeling and functioning your best.

With a high smoke point, this caramelized butter is an ideal oil replacement for cooking, she says, but it’s equally great swiped on toast.

Under the tutelage of the elderly Indian women on a farm in Northern India, Dares leaned how to make it. She fell in love with it and, once back home in Toronto, started a ghee business.

She makes it all by hand, even using a tiny pestle and mortar to grind the spices she uses to infuse her ghees.

In India, ghee is made plain but eaten with herbs. Dares offers hers in seven flavours, including Plain Jane, the all-purpose ghee, Gold Standard, infused with turmeric and black pepper, Sage City, with dried organic sage leaves, and Cardamom Kiss, which has organic ground cardamom and rose petals.

“Rose petals are an aphrodisiac,” she says.

Dares, a lithe, 6-foot brunette, glides through the kitchen and the various stages of making ghee. She slides several pounds of butter from Organic Meadow, which is based in Guelph, into a large pot and simmers it on low heat several hours, skimming off the white foam as it rises to the top. As it cooks, the moisture evaporates, milk solids separate from the fat and the colour graduates from pale canary to brilliant lemon to a deep, rich caramel.

“It’s done when you hear the ‘crackle,’ ” Dares says, putting her ear to the hot fat and recounting the wisdom of the elderly Indian women. “Thousands of years of crackling sounds.”

Dare strains the cooled liquid through cheesecloth, discards the solids and pours the Plain Jane into jars. She swipes her finger through a leftover drop — she likes to eat it plain.

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Who can blame her? A teaspoonful of the mild, slightly grainy ghee goes down so well. As grease for fried eggs and veggies, it lends a subtle, nutty deliciousness that butter just can’t match.

Dares keeps hers at room temperature — with the moisture gone, ghee is shelf-stable — and if properly stored and kept free from environmental bacteria and moisture, the taste matures, she says.

“In India, they age the ghee and pass it down through generations,” she says, stealing another bite. “I love the buttery taste.”

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