Re: Saving bacon fat

[Guest guest]

Judicious use of a ³strainer.² Re-use of bacon/pork/lamb/moo grease is

great and made even better if strained off while still hot to eliminate the

frond and other particles that can foul other dishes or create disturbance

when simply used as a cooking fat later. I also let mine solidify in a

shallow dish to encourage a quicker Œset¹ and to allow more restrained use

later when skimming it with a spatula. I find animal fats to go a lot

further than oil when using for cooking and consequently it is easy to

employ too much for the purpose at hand.

A hilarious anecdote from my personal history: My mother (who was raised in

eastern Canada) was a maple sugar FIEND. Any chance she could, she would

purloin it. Our family has a long line of sugar-captains and sugar-camping.

It was common, therefore, for there to be lots of solidified maple sugar

around, which my mother would make-off with any chance she got. Enter her

mother, the Scotch princess-bride who threw away NOTHING. One of

Grandmother¹s habits was to save bacon fat. Every day she would feed

Grandfather bacon and eggs. She saved all the drippings. In the freezer.

My mother, as a youngster, was scanning the freezer for easy pickins¹ when

she came across a tempting package of greyish-brown stuff. Assuming she had

hit the ³motherlode² (pardon the pun) of maple sugar, she proceeded to tear

into the package and scoop out a huge spoonful of the substance and shove it

into her mouth. Upon masticating it and softening it up she quickly

realized that she was not dissolving a large quantity of pure maple sugar

but rather was stuck with a mouthful of that morning¹s solidified bacon

drippings! I cannot imagine the sensation, but my mother assured me that

she never dove into muddy water again~

Anyway, folding in even a slight amount of any animal fat, particularly so

with BACON fat, can yield that inexplicable yet perfect addition to

scalloped potatoes, soups, or anything that would benefit from more

³mouth-feel² and still leave the dish without the greasiness that comes from

simple oils or even butter...some dishes do not take the ³oil/butter²

flavour the way they will with a simple infusion of bacon fat. And, as Will

has pointed out on numerous occasions, if you use the right kind of product

such as his pork or good beef fat, you can actually boost the nutritional

value of the dish with its inclusion! Just be careful not to cook the fats

excessively when first in the pan because the delicate fats can be quickly

cooked into a state that does not support that proposition.

Cheers,

H. Alan

<snippity-snip>

Do you have any " use it up " tricks for leftover ingredients that our

parents and grandparents routinely saved and used, but that are more

often than not simply tossed away these days? Let's hear them!

Peace,

Genie

<snippity-snip>

[Guest guest]

Oh that's an easy and fun one! :-)

How about saving up all those bread crumbs that always collect at the bottom

of bread bags, at the bottom of the toaster, on the cutting board? I simply add

them to a container in the refrigerator freezer. Crumbs add up over time, and

perfect in dishes such as meat loaf. Yum!

I save the rest of the asparagus stalks that are too tough for eating, same

with broccoli stalks. They go into the freezer too eventually destined for

stock-making. Cheese rinds are good (i.e. Jarlsberg) for stock as well.

If a recipe calls for just egg whites or just egg yolks I freeze the opposites

for future recipes using those. Works well for me.

Do people save water from steaming vegeteables for stock? I haven't decided

if that helps the flavor of bone broths.

Keep those frugal tips coming, guys!

Sara R.

Genie wrote: Because I am

inherently frugal, not to mention downright stingy, I

like to find ways to use things up. This is especially true when it

comes to good food. So, finding that I always have lots and lots of

fat leftover from cooking bacon, I keep it in a glass jar in the

fridge and use it for weeks (months?) after the source bacon has been

eagerly gobbled up.

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