I hear tell of lots of people using various exotic rendered fats.

How does this work, exactly? Are people buying exotic fats from restaurant suppliers? Do people purchase meats JUST for their fat (which seems wasteful)?

I'm guessing that people actually cook something with the meat in question, and then SAVE the fat that renders off.

What's the best way to do this? How do you get the optimal amount of animal fat off the food and into your pot for saving? How can you be sure you're avoiding burning the fat? Once you're done cooking, what's the best way to get the fat out of the pan and into a container for saving it? What's the best way TO save said fat? Fridge? Freezer? How long will it keep?

Can ANY separated fat be used? I.e. fat that's floated to the top of a cooled braising liquid?

I once saved the fat off the top of the liquid from some balsamic braised shortribs I made. I stuck the gross-looking orange slabs in some tupperware and tossed it in the freezer. They worked great on the old indoor grill - I just stuck a slice on top of a burger and the fat oozed into the meat.

I usually buy mine alrady rendered, overseas. When I don't have access to that, I save the fat from cooking Duck Breasts or roasting ducks. You can buy some really cheap fatty ducks at most of the big Asian markets, then slow roast in the oven.

I assume most people keep bacon fat?

One of the treasures I saved to remember my mother-in-law was her bacon grease canister. It's probably older than I am, with a removable strainer. It now resides happily in my fridge.

I don't tend to save other fats, although once I made a beautiful roast goose and I did save the fat from that. Too bad I'm not fond of goose, because the fat from it was wonderful.

I render and save two kinds of fat--pork lard and duck fat (any available bacon fat goes on my dog's dinner, because I love her so much). When I buy duck legs for confit, I often remove the skin before salting the legs, then cut up and render the skin in the oven, which gives me both duck fat and cracklings. I pour off the fat as it renders out, so that it doesn't get too dark, and roast the cracklings until they are crispy. Then I cook the salted legs by submerging them in rendered duck fat (in the oven at a relatively low temperature for a long time, so there is no risk of burning the fat) to make the confit, which I serve with the cracklings. Duck fat that has been used to cook confit can be saved and used again, and will keep in the fridge for months, though it does become salty.

Pork lard can be made two ways--kettling or roasting. Kettling is best for lard that will be used for pie crust. It is made by grinding pork fat and cooking it in water. The fat melts and rises to the top--cracklings should be skimmed off, and the water can be boiled off, or the pot chilled and the fat lifted off the next day. Oven rendered lard has more of a roast pork-y taste and is best for savory uses, like in refried beans, tamales, or sauteeing meat, like schnitzel. I make it by buying fresh pork belly (not salted or cured) at one of the Korean markets, then cutting it into cubes and rendering in the oven. As with the duck skin, I pour off the fat periodically as it renders out, and roast the cracklings until they are golden and crisp.

I generally do not save and re-use fat that has rendered out during meat cooking-- sometimes I pour a little bit onto the dog's kibble.

So I had lunch at Kinkead's for Restaurant Week today, and had a soup that had duck confit in it (which was tremendous). I wasn't familiar with duck confit except by name, so I looked up a ton of recipes online and plan on making this one of my next projects (it's not fermented, but cured is close enough, right? ) A few questions:

1) Raisa or anyone else, do you have any particular recommendations for places to buy the fatty ducks necessary for confit? I live in Dupont and have no car, so something metroable is preferable, although I can zipcar if there aren't any metro-friendly options
2) Zora, how much fat do you generally get off a given duck leg? In particular, how many do I need to make in order to render enough fat to cover the legs?
3) Whenever I buy chuck roasts, I tend to trim off a portion of the fat as I'm cutting the roast into smaller pieces, and I have been saving the fat in the freezer. From reading around online, I've found conflicting reports on the culinary value of beef tallow (rendered beef fat)...most places say it has no flavor and thus doesn't contribute much, but then I've found a few places where people claim it is useful when frying, etc. Anybody tried this? If not, apparently tallow makes great candles
4) If I were going to make pork lard, would it be better to just buy the pork belly, or would it work to just save my pork fat trimmings for a while in the freezer and do the rendering once I've got a respectable amount? (or: how long will pork fat keep in the freezer?)

God I love stuff like this. Food project!

By coincidence, today I scooped off maybe a half a cup of fluffy yellow chicken fat from a pot of cooled boiled chicken, and thought it looked too beautiful to throw away. The first step towards saving was to melt it in a Pyrex measuring cup and stick into the fridge. The fat is now a thick yellow layer on top of a thin layer of broth and lumpy things that will be thrown away. (Edit - OK, I will pour the residue on the dog's kibble. The fat I am keeping.)

I have no experience with this. What's next? Matzo balls?

(Funny how we're all thinking of fat at the same time. Something to do with the turning year?)

1. The best places I've found to get "fatty" ducks are Great Wall Supermarket on Gallows Rd. in Merrifield, or Super H on Lee Highway in Fairfax. They are both reliable sources of fresh ducks at $1.99 a pound. You'll pay 2 or 3 times as much for a fresh duck at Whole Foods. Frozen ducks are available at most supermarkets and Asian markets, cheaper at the latter.

2. For a "new batch" of fresh duck fat, I buy a whole duck and 4-6 legs. You can find duck legs for sale at Han ah Reum at the corner of Lee Highway and Gallows Rd. in Merrifield. They usually only have frozen whole ducks at HaR, so I buy the legs there, and get a fresh duck at Great Wall, down the road, which may or may not have legs that they sell separately. Render all of the skin from the whole duck and the skin from the duck legs, and you will have enough fat to confit all the meat. Then you'll have a nice big tub of fat in your fridge for future batches of confit. I boned out the breast meat, salted and smoked it in my stovetop smoker and then made duck stock from the wings and the frame. Be sure and smell the duck legs before you buy at HaR, to make sure they are fresh. I've gotten burned a couple of times.

3. When you make a beef roast and Yorkshire Pudding, the pudding is cooked in the rendered fat from the roast, so I don't agree that it has no flavor. However, the best use for rendered beef fat is to pour it over peanuts and sunflower seeds in a mold and then hang it up for birds to eat in your yard, in the winter. Cardinals and woodpeckers love it.

4. I have rendered pork fat trimmings to make lard, but pork belly works a lot better. The Asian markets where you get ducks and duck legs are the place to get pork belly. Cut it into small cubes and render in the oven. Fat will keep for a long time in the freezer, as long as it is well-wrapped.

Wow, that's excellent, thanks for the info. I see a zipcar trip in my future.

3) One downside of living in the city is having no "yard" as such I've got a courtyard but my neighbors might not approve if I started installing bird feeders in the common area.

4) A friend of mine undertook a project to make bacon, and she got her pork belly from Wagshall's (they had to order it for her). I imagine it's cheaper to get it from the Asian markets, I'll tell her to try there next time too.

Again, thanks. Google only gets you so far, and then local expertise is really helpful in getting started in these sorts of things.

For confit you really need big duck legs, not peking duck. You can get fat fresh legs at Hudson Valley Foie Gras (on the web), sure you pay the overnight shipping but the legs are the best for confit, buy extra legs and the cost will work out in the end. You can also get a tub of duck fat from them, I don't remember the portions but you'll need a least half a quart of duck fat for 6 legs or so. Their duck fat is way better priced than ordering from D'artagnan. You can render about 1.5 cups of duck fat from the skin of a whole peking duck.

So last night I was bored and wanted to cook something, but I wasn't hungry and it was late, so I figured I'd do some prep for tonight's dinner (grilled sirloin).

I trimmed the fat and grisle off the sirloin (there was a lot of it), rendered the fat out of the cut-off pieces, then once it cooled I mixed in some garlic and herbs and rubbed it all into and over the steak. Tonight I'll be grilling the fat-soaked sirloins.

Has anyone ever heard of a technique like this? Rendering the fat out of something and then marinating* it in its own fat?

*I know it's not REALLY a marinade since there's no acid... it's more of an "overnight wet rub" (which you can still get in Singapore for less than $2).

This is fat rendered from two different short-rib recipes I made this weekend.

What should I do with it?

Is it beef fat? I would just pitch it, unless you feel like smearing it on some toast.

Make soap?

My first thought for recycling beef fat is to use it in a dish where you are sauteeing/frying beef for something. If you're making a beef stew or a chili where you're not starting out with a whole lot of fat on the meat, you could substitute beef fat for using oil or butter.

It's a mixture of beef fat, bacon fat, butter fat, and olive oil fat.

What's wrong with beef fat?

Is this the fat that you got after cooling the braising liquid? If so Heather's suggestion is probably the best. It is going to be full of the flavors from the braise and other 'impurities' that will make using it rather difficult. If you try and saute or fry something in it all those impurities will most likely burn at the high temps and give some nasty off flavors to the dish. Rendering is used to obtain clean fat.

That's exactly what I was thinking, Mike, thanks for explaining. Plus, most cooks don't usually render and save beef fat like they do goose fat, or duck fat, or lard. It's got a strong flavor.

Maybe if it's a cold morning I'll put it in my coffee.

What if I bought some super-lean ground beef for burgers, then mixed the fat in? That could be good... you'd get the beefy flavor of the braise...

The impurites still might take on a nasty flavor if you tried to brown them.

Yes. I don't think it would work if it's not pure beef fat. I've reallocated beef fat from one beef dish to another, but it's not a kind of fat I normally save. If it's been long-cooked and has other stuff in it, it's probably not going to work out.