Who else save and used rendered animal fat(s)?

[Mike9]

Growing up we always had a can of bacon drippins' on, or near the stove as did my grandma and so many other grandmas. I do it's a no brainer for flavor and has a fairly high smoke point. I also save rendered duck fat, chicken fat (schmaltz), and also the separated fat/pan drippings. They represent a group of mono saturated fats that is so much better than many flavorless oils, shortenings, etc. some of which are not. or hydrogenated/partially hydrogenated. Just curious what other cooks think.

[ronnie_suburban]

Always and almost all of it -- fat, juices, etc. I've got so many little tubs, containers and packets in the fridge, the family teases me about it. Once they solidify, I can vacuum-seal them in flat bags and store them conveniently in the freezer. I do my best to stay organized by keeping them labeled/dated. But sometimes there's just a mystery item in there that I can't identify until I start cooking with it. For the most part, though, I go through them pretty steadily. They do add flavor but some of them are very specific (especially the smoked ones), so they can't all be use universally.

[Mike9]

Yes I slice the "jelly" from the fat and save that separately in the freezer - all labeled "GOO" and what kind. I'm enjoying "butter schmaltz" lately. At thanksgiving I put compound butter under the turkey skin. My DIL was going to pour the drippings out and said - "not so fast". The next day I separated the goo from the butter schmaltz and talk about good potatoes. It has better flavor than duck fat IMO. That goo went into a delicious soup made with 40hr. turkey bone broth.

[ronnie_suburban]

Yes I slice the "jelly" from the fat and save that separately in the freezer - all labeled "GOO" and what kind. I'm enjoying "butter schmaltz" lately. At thanksgiving I put compound butter under the turkey skin. My DIL was going to pour the drippings out and said - "not so fast". The next day I separated the goo from the butter schmaltz and talk about good potatoes. It has better flavor than duck fat IMO. That goo went into a delicious soup made with 40hr. turkey bone broth.

Nice. It's very against my nature to ever throw anything away, so I love this kind of resourcefulness. The fact it often improves cooking is a great bonus.

[XexoX]

Not having a lot of rendered fat around, I bought some bacon grease at Costco. They marked it down to $2.97 for 2 14oz containers. Gotta seal and freeze the extras I bought.

I do have some fat saved from the last ham, and a bit of chicken fat, need to seal and freeze that too.

[d_rap]

Glad people are still doing this.

Fuchsia Dunlop, most recently, and Diana Kennedy, and Paula Wolfert for years, have kept me on the lookout for cheap, often free, sheets of fatty pork to render my own lard. My 99 Ranch Asian market and the small Italian butcher in my town often just give it to me. And the cracklins make such a sinful snack or ingredient.

Meanwhile my wife went from claiming she didn't like duck to insisting I make duck legs practically every couple of weeks, so there's always a container of duck fat in the fridge.

Homemade chicken stock is also a pantry ingredient around here and I save the schmaltz and use it regularly. We still have a garden thick with our own radishes and tonight I'm going to saute the greens for pasta in a combo of schmaltz and evoo with some pancetta and garlic, then finish with stock and parmigiano. Almost anything that benefits from chicken stock can be dialed up with a little chicken fat.

[cliff]

Mostly pork and duck fat for me. I go through a fair amount of pork shoulder. If I get a good one, I can't let that good fat go to waste. I'll trim it and then render.

[Mike9]

When I find a fatty pork butt I turn it into sausage post haste. One store a couple of towns over has "Boston Butt" consistently less than $1/lb. The store in town trims pork rib roasts way to close IMO, but then they package that trim for sale. I buy it, freeze it and use it for sausage. I always have beef suet in the freezer as well.

[Jeff B]

I'm right there with Ronnie, "always and almost all of it -- fat, juices, etc." Just too many places to us it for a little more flavor or when you need a little more broth.

I save all the fat trimmings from beef and pork. My brother likes to bag a deer or three each year off my parents farm. We use all the fat trimmings we save for venison burger. Stuff is great in chili, spaghetti of just in a patty off the grill. Higher in protein and lower in cholesterol than beef on top of just being good.

[Mike9]

Yes when we butcher a deer - I always taste the tallow. It's usually very good depending on the growing season. Ours are apple, acorn and corn fed like Southern Michigan Ag raised venison. Up in the North country not so much - jack pine and scrub oak and makes for a bitter product both meat and the fat is of no value. My grandmother used to soak the UP venison in a dilute vinegar brine to expunge as much of that from the meat as possible.

[XexoX]

Yes when we butcher a deer - I always taste the tallow. It's usually very good depending on the growing season. Ours are apple, acorn and corn fed like Southern Michigan Ag raised venison. Up in the North country not so much - jack pine and scrub oak and makes for a bitter product both meat and the fat is of no value. My grandmother used to soak the UP venison in a dilute vinegar brine to expunge as much of that from the meat as possible.

I've heard of soaking in milk, but not sure what or why.

[Mike9]

I soak venison liver in milk to draw any blood out. I've never tried the kidneys though and I have always loved lamb kidneys since I was a kid. Maybe next year . . .

[playingfetch]

I'll save beef fat trimming before hunting season and add it to my venison when making sausage. If I buy a duck I'll save the rendered fat but on wild duck there isn't very much fat there.

[bLoebs]

Recently bought some beef ribs to smoke. Trimmed all the fat off the top and rendered the fat in my cast iron / carbon steel pan. Was pretty proud of myself for that one... seasoned the pans, produced about a pint of very nice beef fat (tallow?) and got some cracklings out of it too!! Win win win !

[mjgillen]

My mom and grandma always saved their bacon fat. My grandma used to fry her eggs in 1/2" of bacon fat. Great flavor however probably not the healthiest. My mom used the bacon fat in recipes.

[jmcnelly85]

We’ll go through 140-210 lbs of brisket a week at work, all of the trimmed fat that doesn’t make its way into sausage will get ground and smoked overnight to make tallow. We cut our butter bill in half using tallow to toast our burger buns and and sandwich’s while imparting a slightly Smokey, beefy flavor. All of our bacon grease will get used in either braised cabbage or seared Brussels sprouts, rendered sweat from our Swedish meatballs gets used in our white gravy, and some of our shmaltz gets used in a roux for chicken wild rice soup. Every once in a while we’ll play around with tapioca maltodextrin for garnishes and what not but powders aren’t really my jam.

I keep trying to get my baker to incorporate more rendered fats into our breads but apparently they aren’t consistent enough compared to butter or purchased shortening. I don’t know enough about baking to argue the point one way or another.