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Using fat to preserve

4K views 34 replies 12 participants last post by  randkl 
#1 ·
From the cookbook available on kindle unlimited
The Complete Nose to Tail

RENDERING
Traditionally, Britain being a seafaring nation, preserving food has always been important; unfortunately, the deep freeze has eclipsed the process of rendering, cooking and preserving in fat, which produces tender, flavorsome meat that keeps, improving with age, and could not be more versatile in its gastronomic possibilities. In the sixteenth century, for long sea journeys, cooked ducks and mallards were preserved in their own fat, butter and spices. In France the practice of confit (cooking and preserving meat in fat) has remained fundamental in modern kitchens. In Britain potting meat (cooking meat, shredding it, and covering it with an airtight layer of butter or suet) is still popular. But, for a country full of ducks and geese, why are we not using the fat like the sixteenth-century navy? Duck and geese are extraordinary fat providers. Put your hand into their cavity and you should be able to pull out a great clump of fat; place this into a pan and heat to a melting simmer. When it appears all the fat has flown, strain it into a jar, seal it and allow it to cool, then refrigerate. Using the same method you can also render down pork fat. Roast a duck and see how fat collects into your roasting pan. Again, pour this off into a jar, seal it, allow it to cool then refrigerate. If you still need more fat you can always buy tins of duck or goose fat.

HOW TO DO IT
In a plastic, glass or china container, scantily scatter sea salt, black pepper and twigs of thyme. Place a layer of your chosen meat and repeat your scattering. Keep on layering until done. Cover and leave in the fridge for 24 hours. This, as well as flavoring it, removes water from the meat. The next day there should be a salty puddle in your container. Remove the meat and brush off any remaining salt, pepper and thyme. Dry it with a clean tea towel, place in an oven dish or pan, cover with duck, goose or pork fat, or a combination, and cover with foil. Cook in a medium oven until the flesh is giving but not falling apart. When it’s cooked, remove the meat to a sealable glass, plastic or china container, then pour fat over to cover. Seal the container, allow it to cool and refrigerate. The only exception is tongue, which, while warm, should be peeled then returned to the fat.

WHAT TO DO WITH YOUR GOODIES IN FAT
Your meat is now flavorsome, giving and amazingly versatile. Duck, goose or rabbit legs are a meal in themselves when heated in a hot oven to crisp the skin, or sorted through and shredded in a salad. So, too, with giblets; use warmed in a salad, in a terrine, in stews—the possibilities hold no bounds. If cooking a lentil or bean stew the confit of pork belly or skin could not be anywhere happier. Eat tongues (at room temperature so the fat can run off) sliced with pickles or in a salad, pan-fry slices or make a kind of rich pressed tongue by placing the warm tongue into a terrine mold or plastic-wrap-lined bread tin, drizzling over some of the fat, and putting under great pressure. You can then reuse the fat for preserving or cooking with. Restaurants are confiting madly, and so should you at home.

APPROXIMATE COOKING TIMES IN FAT
Ducks’ legs: 2¼ hours
Goose legs: 2¾ hours
Duck or goose gizzards, necks, hearts: 2 hours
Rabbits’ legs: 2 hours
Lambs’ tongues: 2 hours
Pigs’ tongues: 2½ hours
Pork belly: 2½ hours
Pork skin: 1½ hours

KEEPING TIMES
Food preserved in fat has fantastic longevity, if kept in the fridge and properly covered in fat, but nature being nature there is now and then a batch that does not wish to grow old gracefully. So this method of preserving is not for ever, and I recommend using within six months.
 
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#2 ·
One thing is I'd recommend skipping the plastic jars and going with glass. Plastic is porous and problematic, but leftover glass jars are so common that we end up looking for ways to recycle them. Leftover pasta sauce jars would be great for this.

I think the reason that this practice has declined is due to the practice of buying close trimmed meat on grocery styro trays instead of the whole or large cuts. We can buy skinless and boneless chicken breasts for around a buck a pound. It's hard walking past that kind of dinner deal when shopping. But whole birds are almost the same price these days. For dinner that night the breasts end up a better meat value. But there is more than just the muscle meat going on in the whole bird. Bones and giblets for micronutrients and gelatin. And all that useful long life saturated meat fat. Duck fat rocks, but so does the fat from other fowl as well. Tallow, suet, and real lard are becoming impossible to find on their own and modern meat cuts are trimmed close so the store butchers have fat to mix in with ground meat.
 
#3 ·
Spiced meat put in small jars or pots and sealed with butter or fat is called confit by the French (pronounced con-FEET), or just potted meat by the more down to earth British. It can be chunks, shreds or ground up so it spreads. It doesn't work well in batches much bigger than pint-sized though it can be bigger around but shallow. I'm not sure, I think it has to do with how quickly it cools. The world used to do this more often before they invented refrigeration. Like waxing and hanging cheese first world countries are not fond of the old ways since they can often be unreliable.
 
#5 ·
Small is definitely better for the same reason they sell canned meat in stores in meal or snacked sized cans.

Ever messed with one of those institutional sized food service cans of tuna? Unless feeding a platoon they become a PIA to finish off.

Sure, the folks in times past used to use big crockery jars for storing meat this way, but lifestyles have changed.

Plus using smaller jars means if a batch jar goes south you aren't out a huge load of expensive meat and fat.

I think quart jars are fine though if you have the eaters around, but that's getting about the limit, unless your last name is Dugger.
 
#8 ·
I rendered a bunch of pasture-raised pork fat in March and stored it in clean glass jars in the fridge. By August every single one of them had mold in the bottom. Some had mold throughout.

Because of that experience with pure lard (no meat packed in it), I'm leery of trying this for any length of time.
 
#9 ·
I would be hesitant to use any fat from animals raised commercially. A lot of things, including antibiotics, are stored in the fat of an animal. I have rendered fat from our own beef or hogs and it’s been very nice. I’ve also used the fat from our chickens for cooking. I have also purchased fat from our local butcher around the time that the 4-H and FFA animals are processed after the fair.
 
#16 ·
Nope. Not by my book. Getting the moisture out is important.

You might settle for just 300F though. I think it more of a time issue than high temp.

High temps can cause peroxidated stress on the molecules when it gets close to the smoke point. Lard smokes at 375F, so with consumer ovens not being the most precise of creatures, the 350F setting usual will have some bit of time over 350F during the hour. Backing it down to 300F assures it will never get close to the smoke point. 325F should work too. I just settled on 300F as very safe and round number.
 
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#23 ·
There are certainly some awesome Brit chefs. And they cook French. :D:
 
#27 ·
There are lousy meals to be found anywhere you go. Cuisine is a different matter.

Brits have lousy cuisine, regardless of the skill and ingredients in it. There are perfectly fine sources of food there. I'd shop a Brit farmers' market or seafood dock any day of the week. If that food went into continental or ethnic cuisine it would be fine, but put that same raw food into Brit dishes and it is more or less ruined.

Too much is boiled, stuffed into heavy pies, mushy veggies, and in general the food in its raw form is treated like it is a criminal that must be subdued. And once it has been thorough killed you smear it with some other overly processed spread. Marmite, chutney, etc.

The problem likely stems from WW2 and the privations that limited food supplies. Fare was simple and well cooked to ensure safety. Then you got used to it and came to see innovation as something that came from immigrants.

Cuisine stems from peasant culture. Your peasantry mostly became city drones after WW1 and then WW2 left them with little fresh supplies. City drones cooking out of cans long enough that they became used to it. Beans on toast? Also, your climate limits the variety of native herbs and spices. Also, as good as your fresh produce can be you don't make a lot of it. As a result you rely too much on offal to fill out the calories. Black puddling? Seriously, that was a bad idea. Finally, you have a literal perception problem. Your native dishes look very unappealing. The French always understood that should look and smell good before you had your first bite.
 
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