Shmaltz

[sunshinestarr]

So I've been saving my chicken fat each week, something I just started doing last week. We generally eat a roast chicken once a week, and I just pour the fat from the pan off into a container when we're doing eating.

I'm noticing that it levels off into two layers in my fridge - white, on top (the shmaltz) and a darker brown layer on the bottom. What's that stuff? Is it gelatin? And can I just use them together?

Thanks!

[Otto]

Originally Posted by sunshinestarr

So I've been saving my chicken fat each week, something I just started doing last week. We generally eat a roast chicken once a week, and I just pour the fat from the pan off into a container when we're doing eating.

I'm noticing that it levels off into two layers in my fridge - white, on top (the shmaltz) and a darker brown layer on the bottom. What's that stuff? Is it gelatin? And can I just use them together?

Schmaltz is usually rendered. If you mostly have fat from collected drippings, it can be taken off the top, but I wouldn't fool around with the anaerobically stored broth layer beyond a week, if that.

[sunshinestarr]

Originally Posted by Otto

Schmaltz is usually rendered. If you mostly have fat from collected drippings, it can be taken off the top, but I wouldn't fool around with the anaerobically stored broth layer beyond a week, if that.

Thanks for replying! I didn't understand the bolded part, though.

Is there a better way to get shmaltz?

[swood]

I pour off the juices/fat from the roast chickens in the same way. I was saving the fat separately, but I stopped doing so when I re-read in NT that Sally Fallon considers chicken fat an inferior fat for cooking. The stuff on the bottom is basically gelatin as far as I can tell. Now what I do is I put all the fat and gelatin into my stock pot when I make chicken stock a few days after roasting. I leave the layer of fat on the jars in which I am storing my broth as I was reading on here that the layer of fat helps preserve it. Then when I use it in a recipe, I spoon off the fat from the top of the jar and discard it. You could leave a little fat in the recipe too, since that is supposed to be where the antibacterial goodness of the chicken is.

[Faliciagayle]

Originally Posted by sunshinestarr

Thanks for replying! I didn't understand the bolded part, though.

Is there a better way to get shmaltz?

the dark layer beneath the white fat is in an anaerobic environment (without oxygen). She's suggesting that once you take the fat off the stock/gelatin that you should use it within a week (the stock - not the fat).

I typically just skim my shmaltz off the top layer of broth and if I'm feeling really inspired, I will render it (cook it for a long time to cook out impurities). I think you can also trim off the fat from raw chickens, or ask your butcher for the fat/skin from breasts and render it that way.

When I've done it straight from pan drippings, I def. render it b/c of all the other stuff on my roasted chicken.

GL!

[Magelet]

Chicken fat as an inferior cooking fat? I wouldn't say so. Maybe it can't handle quite as high cooking temps, but it is a great cooking fat. (The book Fat describes many of the benefits of chicken fat healthwise, and it is a traditional cooking fat).

The bottom layer is the "drippings" the white layer is fat. I generally render up any fatty bits of the chicken which don't fully render themselves in roasting, and save the fat from the stock for further use. I generally keep the pan drippings and make them into gravy with my roast bird, which I then eat with it, and then eat it on toast. and in other things. but you could use the dripping to enrich chicken dishes flavor, and the fat to cook with, for sure.