Rendering Fat.

[slopsbucket]

Sounds disgusting to many people, but those would be the people that throw so much food away then complain about the high prices of living.

I like my eggs fried in Lamb Fat.

I like my Potato Chips fried in Pork Fat.

I like to use Beef Fat for cooking Risotto.

So many of you pour so much good food down the sink, worse, this clogs drainage systems and costs the taxpayers (you) ridiculous amounts of money. So it’s costing you money to throw good food away.

I do a lot of roast meats, except for beef there’s usually a considerable amount of fat, oil and stock in the bottom of the baking dish when I’m done. I don’t throw that away, that’s actually a very expensive product if you were to try and buy it somewhere.

I’m a bit old fashioned when it comes to cooking meat, I grew up in bush communities where the nearest medical help was often days away. People that like their meat still pink in the middle are people that actually wish to die of food poisoning. If a professional chef ever offers me anything only half cooked I’m going to get in his face and personal about it. To serve such food is to threaten my life.

I also don’t like much fat or grease in my meat, I like it lean, so if there’s any fat still on the meat when it’s cooked I scrape that off. I’ve been told that people living in colder climates like some fat on their meat but I live in the tropics.

Put all the excess fat you remove from the meat and the entire contents of the baking dish into a saucepan and put it on a very low heat and let it simmer very gently. While you’re doing this tiny bits of meat and whatever else was in the bottom of the baking dish will be frying, this is good up to a point, eventually they will start to burn and you don’t want a burnt flavour in your oil or the stock.

When you think it’s about to go too far add a cup of water.

Warning : Fire Hazard. Sometimes tipping cold water in to boiling oil will cause it to catch fire but this is no drama if you use your head. Have the lid for the pan in your spare hand when you add the water. If you start adding water and it bursts in to flame simply put the lid on, after a slow count of 3 you can safely remove the lid again and finish adding your water.

Keep your fat on a slow boil for several hours, keep adding a little more water every half hour so it won’t burn.

When you think the large lumps of fat have been reduced as far as they can go turn the heat off.

Pour all of it through a strainer into a bowl, when the bowl has cooled down enough put it in the fridge.

The next day up end your bowl onto the kitchen bench. You have a “sandcastle” of pure clean white fat for cooking with, and on top is a layer of wobbly brown jelly. That jelly is Stock, to be used in soups and stews and risotto.

Sounds like too much of the scavenger for you? I spend about one third of the average westerner on food and I eat meals that most of you can’t afford. You can’t buy this stuff in shops and you can’t get this rich a flavour any other way, the only way to achieve true flavour is to cook properly.

Environmental thinking isn’t new either, it’s actually something very old that has been forgotten.

Cheers,

Andrew.