http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=236x49905Oh my.
Doesn't chicken fat stink, though?
eridani (1000+ posts) Thu Oct-30-08 04:23 AM
Original message
So, what do you do with rendered chicken fat?
Before retirement, I bought canned stocks and just the parts of the chicken I wanted to use for a meal. This week I bought a whole chicken and made some stock and cooked all the parts that weren't breast from a whole chicken. (Fried up the breasts and served them with green beens/almonds.) Lots of stock and cooked chicken meat--I'll freeze some and use the rest to make tortilla soup. And there's a whole lot of solidified chicken fat that I removed after chilling.
Thought I might try to make pate from the liver and etcceteras stuffed in the cavity, using some of the fat instead of butter. But there is way more fat than I can use for that. Do you just throw it away, or is there something else useful to do with it?
bearfan454 (1000+ posts) Thu Oct-30-08 05:57 AM
Response to Original message
1. I put it on the dog's dogfood.
They go apeshit.
Dora (1000+ posts) Thu Oct-30-08 10:49 AM
Response to Original message
2. I used it for risotto once. Amazing.
I also use it to saute the onion/celery/carrots for soups.
TreasonousBastard (1000+ posts) Thu Oct-30-08 11:38 AM
Response to Original message
3. You have "schmaltz" which is highly...favored in Eastern European kosher cooking as an alternative to butter or lard, but isn't all that good for you. Highly saturated and calorific while not really tasting all that good anyway, it's better tossed or left out for the birds. Having said that, give it a shot for some stir fry on occasion-- it might do for frying what chicken stock does for simmering.
(I have had sandwiches in kosher delis where schmaltz was used instead of butter or mayonnaise and they didn't quite make me gag, but I won't do that again.)
Warpy (1000+ posts) Thu Oct-30-08 12:11 PM
Response to Reply #3
5. Using it half and half with an unsaturated oil takes some of the curse off it and it does add a little depth of flavor to stir fries, fried potatoes, and other stuff.
However, I'd much rather have rendered duck fat than schmaltz any day.
The cats liked it back when I ate meat and used to get it once in a while.
Oh man.
The warped primitive just diminished slightly in my evaluation of her.
First, the warped primitive's a rabid anti-milk fanatic, and now she's a rabid anti-meat freak too?
TreasonousBastard (1000+ posts) Thu Oct-30-08 01:21 PM
Response to Reply #5
7. Yeah! Duck and goose fat...are part of that healthy heart French diet. Taste good, too.
Don't have time to goggle it up right now, but I had heard years ago that the waterbird fat is chemically similar to olive oil and has many of the same benefits. Since their fat is meant for insulation and flotation, rather than chicken fat which is, well, just flab, it makes sense that the composition would be much different.
Grandma with the diverted intestine probably has the best answer:
hippywife (1000+ posts) Thu Oct-30-08 12:07 PM
Response to Original message
4. Dogfood.
The empressof all (1000+ posts) Thu Oct-30-08 12:33 PM
Response to Original message
6. I was actually going to check with Whole Foods to buy some
I've been craving chopped liver and thought I'd make it at Thanksgiving. It takes a big glob of the Schmaltz to make it authentic. I don't have the time to make it myself. You're lucky. You can use that chicken fat just like you would Olive Oil. It's great for pan frying.
The chopped liver however is IMO the most glorious way to use it up.
lwfern (1000+ posts) Thu Oct-30-08 03:16 PM
Response to Original message
8. With beef fat you can mix it with birdseed and use it in a suet feeder. I would imagine the chicken fat would be the same.
