Cooking with fat from broth/stock

[jtraceynj]

Making risotto today for dad's birthday, and so the usual $37 stockpot of delicious meat brodo is ready to be defatted and used.

My question is: Must that disgusting layer of fat be thrown out, or is that like throwing out gold? Would it be gross to save for cooking, say, potatoes? Should I be ashamed of myself for even asking?

[Jinmyo]

The fat is mixed with all kinds of dross from the proteins and such.

[tony h]

It seems wastful - but there will be horrible musty undetaste to anything you add it to.

[ngatti]

After carefully straining the fat, Ive found it quite usable as schmalz for latkes and such. The trick has been to not add to much clovey type of herbs to the stock that flavor the fat and tend to sully things with off flavors.

I"ve used 25 pound cubes of rendered chicken fat, rendered my own and used this skimmed fat. For those select uses (Latkes primarily), I haven't found any problem. This is just my experience, YMMV.

BTW, don't use the crud that you periodically skim form the stock during cooking. Jin is correct, this stuff is gnarly. Use the stuff from the top of the cooled stock after it's strained and cooled.

Nick

[Dave the Cook]

Nick--how would you go about straining?

[ngatti]

Nick--how would you go about straining?

Cheesecloth, chinois mousseline.

The stuff comes out crystal clear. As I said, I don't use the stuff ladled off the top during the cooking process. Rather the disc that floats to the top and congeals upon chilling, is removed and any bits clinging to the bottom of the disc are scraped off. Melt strain again and it should be ready for use.

To my mind there shouldn't be anything more in the fat than there would be in the stock itself. Flavors from herbs or mire-poix are another thing so from a flavor standpoint the fats used would be restricted.

Nick