The fat you use to cook your food in makes all the difference. The key to great food is great fat, and that's why here we use only the best grass-fed tallow. Tallow is one of the finest fats to cook with. For years that's what made McDonald's french fries taste so good, but because it's high in saturated fat it was demonized they were forced to switch to nasty hydrogenated oils. Not that I'm a big fan of McDonald's, mind you.
Suet (the fat around the kidney) is not that hard to get, if you have the right sources, which may mean getting to know your local butcher. Sure, you can sometimes buy suet at the grocery store for a price, but the quality may not be guaranteed. Go ahead, make friends with your butcher. He'll be one of your best resources for fine Primal fare. It seems butchers have a lot of fantastic left-overs. Hearts, tongues, livers, kidneys, and suet. Most folks don't bother taking it. They just want the steaks and burgers, which is perfect because that leaves an opening for you to pick up some very cheap tallow. You can pick up kidney fat, which is the very best fat for rendering tallow, for as little as $1.00 per pound.
Rendering is really simple. Again we make use of the crock pot. It's such a handy kitchen tool, too often underrated.
Start by cubing your suet into 2 inch chunks. Sometimes there's still a kidney in there, so trim carefully. Try to remove as much red tissue as possible.
Place chunks in your crock pot, cover with the lid and set to low, and let 'er cook.
After a few hours it'll start looking like this...
When you get enough to start skimming, use a ladle and pour the tallow through a strainer. You don't want any crispy bits in your tallow. Be very careful. It's HOT!
It'll start to lighten as it cools.
And within a few hours you have beautiful, white, creamy tallow.
So once you have your beautiful white tallow, what do you do with it? Cook! It's great for frying. If you want to deep fry, tallow is the perfect fat. It's great for cooking beef, of course, but also venison and other red meats. I use it to cook my eggs also.
Beef tallow has a very mild flavor. In fact it's almost flavorless. That makes it great for those times where you don't want to alter the taste of the foods your cooking, which can happen when you use coconut oil, olive oil, butter or lard.
Tallow is shelf-stable so you can keep it in your cupboard. It should remain solid at room temperature. If you find it softening up you can put it in the refrigerator. Just let it thaw a bit before you use it.
And there you have it. Tallow.
1 comments:
Very helpful entry, especially using the crockpot... Thank you for the information.
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