Animal Fats: Better Cooking Through Science 02

[chiantiglace]

Why do I consistently get better browning when I use rendered pork fat vs. oil or butter?

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Probably because the saturated fat is able to absorb more surface area during cooking and also clings (like cooked sugar) to the meat.

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I'm not sure I follow this. What does "absorb more surface area" mean?

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I am not sure scientifically, but it seems to me from my personal experience that when I cook with animal fat (duck mainly) that the fat seems "grab a hold" of the meat easier than say, canola.maybe i'll try an experiment when I get a chance. Sear the same exact cut of meat, same temperatures for same amount of time. Then I will check which one cooked faster, which one is hotter, which one created the most malliard and where, and which one (after removing form the pan) retained the most fat from the cooking surface.

I think that will be neat to find out.

[Chris Amirault]

Sounds like a plan -- though controlling conditions may be tricky. Maybe you'll have to use the exact same pan on the exact same burner and just repeat the experiment with identical times, etc?

[Baggy]

You might also take a look at whether the second batch of food browns faster/better than the first. My first batch, even with leaving the stove on for a while, never seems to brown up as successfully as following batches.

[Shalmanese]

I was going to chime in and say I recalled something from McGee's OFAC that fats don't reach an optimum browning potential until they've broken down somewhat. Restaurants know that you have to mix in a bit of the old fry oil with the fresh stuff otherwise the first few fried things are going to come out overly pale. By rendering fat, you've already cooked them once so they're going to brown better.