So I looked up “traditional ghee” and the only difference I found is that traditionally you are supposed to start with fresh raw milk and then churn your own butter. From there, you make the ghee the same way I do–the resulting “curd” or butter in a pan on the stove until the solids separate and carmelize, then strain the ghee. Since I don’t have my own cow and raw milk is expensive, and there’s no advantage I can see to churning my own butter from commercial cream (and one site said that “it’s not ghee if you make it from commercial cream” so I guess those of us with cows are out of luck), then it seems to me that the ghee I make on my stove top from good quality butter is essentially the same. I have purchased some commercial ghees that people of Indian culture sing the praises of and don’t detect any difference, but perhaps my palate is not nuanced enough to detect the subtleties.
I have had a similar debate with a professional chef who declared that homemade mayo made with an immersion blender instead of whisking it just so is not truly “mayo”, that it’s too soft (I find the texture perfect) and that it will separate (mine does not). I get that ghee making and hand whisked mayo are honored traditions, but IMHO it’s a bit of culinary snobbery to declare something that uses the same ingredients and results in the same product inferior just because it’s not made in the traditional way.
The only thing that might make a difference in ghee is freshness. I have disliked the ghee I made with Kerrygold butter, and I like local butter made from grassfed cow’s milk better than Kerrygold, too, because the local butter is fresher. So maybe the point of making your own butter first and then turning it into ghee is freshness. That’s why I start with a fresh local butter of good quality. But as to techniques, once your “curd” or butter is on the stove, it’s all the same.