Schmaltz

Aw yeah.

Repeat... AW YEAH!

In the past, when I was gonna make chicken (bbq or baked or fried or whatever), I used to buy butchered thighs from The Joe (that's Farmer Joe's, our local yuppie-mart, not Trader Joe's). I still do when I'm cooking for company (consistency), but other times I've taken to buying the whole chickens.

Buying whole chickens means two things in addition to the deliciousness of legs, thighs, breasts, and wings: Chicken stock from the backs, wingtips, and necks - and Schmaltz.

I adore matzoh ball soup, as do Jacki and Nikki, and man those balls ain't the same without the chicken-fatty flavor of schmaltz. As I am ready now to make another batch from the fat I trimmed from the chickens, I figured I'd research schmaltz rendering techniques. In the past I simply put the fats and skins into the fry-pan and heated until the fat was liquefied, then poured it off and cooled it. Turns out I was not far off.

It seems there are two alternate methods to my basic low-heat pan rendering. One is to use water in the process (a little or a lot) - boiling the fat to render it, then allowing it to separate in the fridge before discarding the water (letting all the water boil away in some cases). I had thought of this, but between the absence of that yummy browned flavor that comes from pan-rendering, and not seeing the need to cool a bunch of water in the fridge unnecessarily, I think I will stick with the pan. The second different method is to use the pan-rendering technique, but to add diced onion to augment the flavor. Sounds good to me, but I think my basic rendering will remain nude.

I've taken to saving lots of my rendered fats (beef, bacon, etc) in the freezer, because they invariably prove useful. On the most basic level, it simply expands my choice of oils/fats to use in whatever recipe I'm making. Plus, it feels like less waste. Surely it's a sin to pour down the drain something as luxurious (and resource consumptive) as premium animal fats.