Schmaltz (i.e. Chicken Fat, Goose Fat, etc.)

[Pam R]

  And maybe it's time for me to embrace my heritage and tackle kugel! 

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Oh, do it! While I'm sure the potato kugel is amazing, I'm thinking my favorite kugel wouldn't hurt from a hit of shmaltz. Cook down a couple of onions, until they've started to caramelize. Through in a bunch of thinly sliced mushrooms, salt and black pepper. Cook until the liquid from the mushrooms has been released and started to evaporate. Toss with egg noodles and eggs (also good is a little leftover brisket juice),into a greased casserole and bake until golden and toasty.

Edited October 27, 2005 by Pam R (log)

[CaliPoutine]

  And maybe it's time for me to embrace my heritage and tackle kugel! 

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Oh, do it! While I'm sure the potato kugel is amazing, I'm thinking my favorite kugel wouldn't hurt from a hit of shmaltz. Cook down a couple of onions, until they've started to caramelize. Through in a bunch of thinly sliced mushrooms, salt and black pepper. Cook until the liquid from the mushrooms has been released and started to evaporate. Toss with egg noodles and eggs (also good is a little leftover brisket juice),into a greased casserole and bake until golden and toasty.

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Since you posted this on my food blog, Robin has been begging me to make it. I think its in the cards this weekend.

[mhadam]

schmaltz was used as a spread, as a treat, in my parents home on some nice rye with a sprinkling of corse salt

my parents always had a jar in the fridge of it.

[Gifted Gourmet]

If you want to do a potato kugel, one simple and the other a bit more complex, try these two recipes from Recipe Gullet

[jackal10]

Schmalz, like anything pleasurable, is banned by the food police. Especially with salt on it. All that saturated fat and cholesterol.

All the more reason to indulge, say I. Those theories are dubious, and the pleasure given by the occasional schmalz on toast or potato kugel will more than compensate, especially given its stress relieving properties (and no doubt it is full of B vitamins and anti-cancer components). Its not as though its a major diet component...and it must be better for you than, say, a hamburger or worse a soy burger...

Edited October 27, 2005 by jackal10 (log)

[azureus]

What about making "schmaltz" from turkey fat? Would it be equally tasty, or a waste of time? I'm going to have quite a bit of it in the near future. . .

April

[melkor]

I've got a bit of turkey fat in the freezer, it isn't as good as chicken or duck fat, but it makes a great roux and will work for roasting veg. It'll also work in a pinch to top up your fat collection for confit.

[Pam R]

Generally, I find there isn't that much fat on the turkey's I'm using...

[jsolomon]

As I sit, reading weepy-eyed evangelizations about schmaltz, all I can think of is "when is the fat-rendering eGCI course?"

[theabroma]

As I sit, reading weepy-eyed evangelizations about schmaltz, all I can think of is "when is the fat-rendering eGCI course?"

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Lardy! What a splendid idea.

Theabroma

[Susan in FL]

Let it be known here and abroad, oyez, oyez, that schmaltz, whether from goose fat as was originally intended or chicken fat, is not to be thought of as an item of food.  Simply stated, and with no exaggeration whatsoever, schmaltz is god's gift to humankind, a gift so great that the mere thought of spreading it thickly on good country-style bread is enough to elevate mere mortals to an understanding of why kings are greeted by trumpets, why angels fly and why fairy-godmothers exist. 

As to gribenes (the cracklings made from rendered goose fat), a treat so great that no poet, author or even demi-god has ever succeeded in describing it with mere words. 

As to the combination of schmaltz and gribenes, let it be known that there is a law (not from Mt Sinai perhaps but certainly from one of the highest of the Alps) that even when thinking of these one is required to bow one's head in acknowledgement of the greatness of the universe.

And that, by heaven, is where I stand.

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I'm with you! That surely describes its goodness.

I first thought of rendered chicken fat and tried using it back some years ago, before I knew it was a real thing. When I first learned of schmaltz, I was so amazed! I've been way too ignorant of wonderful Jewish style cooking, but that is changing. We have always cooked goose and duck cracklings, but this thread just taught me the term gribenes.

.....your fat collection for confit.

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Now there is a great idea. I've had this thought in my head that a fat collection for confit should be duck fat only. In our fridge there are four different jars of rendered fat -- bacon, goose, duck, and chicken -- each we like for certain things. Why not also a big container for all. I have never done confit.

I love the idea of a fat-rendering eGCI course!

[Chris Amirault]

Perhaps we can persuade Linda (Fifi) to expand upon her great Recipe Gullet lard directions, eh?

[mrbigjas]

you know, jews aren't the only ones using rendered stock fat for cooking. my mom (and now I do too) always uses the chicken fat from the top of the stock as at least a portion of the fat in the biscuits, when making chicken & biscuits for dinner--my favorite dish growing up. we just didn't call it schmaltz...

[Shalmanese]

I've sadly been forced to give up my animal fat obsession as of late due to an ever expanding waistline but the one small concession I will make is that I take the fat from off the top of the drippings of a roast chicken and use it to make the most utterly divine salad dressing in the world. I figure the goodness of the lettuce is enough to balance the badness of all that cholesterol.

[slkinsey]

One of the many stories my mom told me about growing up in New York's Lower East Side in the 1930s was about eating schmaltz on spaghetti

This is actually really tasty. I have a couple of good books on Italian Jewish cooking (believe it or not, there was a time when Italy was a center of European Judaism). One of the best recipes in the Italian Jewish tradition was one where you would roast a chicken for the meat course, and for the pasta course you would simply deglaze the roasting pan and toss the drippings with fresh pasta and a little parsley. I have often made this either as two separate dishes or by pulling the chicken meat apart and tossing it together with the fresh pasta and drippings.

Im curious, how long does schmaltz last?  I have some in the fridge from about 6 months ago.  Do you think its still good?

The best place to keep it is in a tightly covered jar in the freezer. There, it will keep more or less forever.

I'm like the king of rendered animal fats. In my freezer at the moment can be found jars of rendered duck fat, goose fat, chicken fat, beef fat, bacon fat and lard. All of these I have rendered myself except for the lard (it's difficult to get enough pork fat to be worth rendering, and Faicco's pork store renders some beautiful lard). I have in the past kept rendered lamb fat (too strong flavored to be useful) and rendered ham fat (tasty!). This, of course, in addition to the various un-rendered animal fats I have stuck back there in the form of guanciale, fat back, etc.

[CaliPoutine]

I used some of my frozen shmaltz today to make( in my humble opinion) the best use for shmatlz

Jewish Penicillan.

I'm happy to report that the matza balls were light and fluffy.

[Jmahl]

Isn't there a product called something like "Niya Fats" or something like that? Somewhere in the back of my mind I remember something like that. And isn't that clarified chicken fat?

Didn't Mrs. Doubtfire say " I used to buy my gribenes from a moyle but they were too chewy" ?

[Jason Perlow]

Nyafat is what you are thinking of, and its pure vegatable product. Its a pareve Schmaltz replacement.

There is NO real replacement for Schmaltz. The only thing that compares to it is lard or bacon fat, and that isn't Kosher.

[Jmahl]

I stand corrected, yes Nyafat is a vegetable fat substitute. Not the real thing.

[Peter B Wolf]

Though not Jewish myself, but grown up in Germany, 'Schmalz' in German means rendered fat, any that's it

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When referred to Schmalz in Germany, nintynine out of a hundred times, one thinks of rendered Pork fat, if other, the appropriate adjective ie. Huehner (Chicken), Gaense oder Enten (Goose or Duck) Schmalz is used.

I have no idea if the word Schmalz is original German or Juedisch (Yiddish).

Schmalz (Lard) with Grieben on Sourdough Rye is regularily eaten at any County or State Fair. Yes, and coarse salt sprinkled on it.

Back to Chicken fat (Schmalz 'US'). Here ine Maine I found a Chicken processor, approached him and ordered 10 pounds of fat, rendered it, and it is frozen in half pint containers. Use it for everything. Want to know where? let me know

[Megan Blocker]

Click here to read Mimi Sheraton's letter to the NY Times Magazine on the subject of schmal(t)z!!!

Edited April 23, 2006 by Megan Blocker (log)

[Chris Amirault]

A swell quotation from that letter:

[C]hicken schmaltz (with the "t") in Jewish households is usually homemade. All Winger need do is to take a big, fat, raw chicken — like a soup fowl — and trim off all the yellow fat and the skin of the neck and from around openings and render them slowly. Leftover cracklings are the lagniappe known as griebenese.

[Kris]

What exactly is rendering and why do you need to do that to animal fats?

[Chris Amirault]

Rendering is heating fat-laden animal components over relatively low heat so that they release the fat in a form that can still be used for cooking, baking, and so on. If you heat the fat too high (past its smoke point), then the fat browns and loses the properties that allow you to cook with it.

[The Old Foodie]

Rendered "meat fat" also makes fantastic pastry for savoury pies - not just the hot water crust for English pork pies, but you can also use it for a shortcrust type pastry. I've never tried chicken fat this way, but I will definitely try it next time I am prevailed upon by my family to make chicken pies.