I hate to throw away fat as I’m prepping chicken. The skin, the tail, the little bits by the rear opening to the body cavity. Whenever I prep a large amount of chicken, I squirrel away the fat trimming in small sandwich bags, freezing them for batches of schmaltz (the Yiddish term for rendered chicken fat) later on. My problem is that I either (1) forget to render the schmaltz or (2) cannot find the rendered fat when I want it for cooking. And that’s usually right as I’m heating up the wok.
This evening, I deboned several chicken leg quarters for a stir-fry. I took the skin off and trimmed the fat. The flaccid spare parts sat in a heap on my cutting board. I was contemplating whether or not it was enough to save. And, just as I was about to scoop up that skin and fat to discard it, I remembered some great instructions from a 1968 Chinese cookbook that I’d recently read.
The cookbook was by Jim Lee, a graphics designer turned school teacher in Manhattan. He was a cranky but very thoughtful and practical writer. One of the things Lee mentioned in a recipe was to render chicken fat on the spot for stir-frying.
Now let me pause here to let you know that stir-frying with rendered chicken fat is fantastic. My mother said that in Vietnam, fat chickens were precious. Growing up, her family save every bit of fat from their chickens and rendered it for cooking. “We keep the fat in a little can,” she wistfully told me. Just like bacon grease, no?
A few years ago, Chinese food expert and restaurateur Bruce Cost revealed that chicken fat was used at his Big Bowl restaurants in Chicago. They save the fat from stock making, and it lends wonderful flavor to food.
Pork fat is nice, but chicken fat has an incomparable round richness. Duck fat is equally lovely and I saved the fat from steaming the Sichuan deep-fried ducks.
How to render chicken fat on the spot
Back to my chicken fat tonight. I heated up my skillet to medium and put the fat in there. I went about preparing the remaining parts of the dinner ingredients while the chicken fat sputtered and hissed. Once in a while I stirred and poked at the fat to keep it moving.
When there seemed to be enough for dinner (about 2 tablespoons), I turned off the skillet and let the sizzling noises subside. Then I removed and discarded the whole pieces, saving a few cracklings to superfluously add to the food.
The fat was already in the skillet and ready to be reheated for stir-frying the spinach and garlic. The result was fantastic. I felt no guilt for eating chicken fat because it was an ingredient that I put to use instead of discarding. The calories are about the same as for other fats, and since chicken fat is natural stuff, I can digest it a lot easier.
Next time you trim chicken, don’t throw away that fat! Render it on the spot.
Do you cook with chicken fat? What do you do with it?
Joel says
Cooking with chicken fat was very popular in Hong Kong up until the 1970s when "nouvelle Chinese cuisine" seemingly banished animal fats forever from the kitchen. It is particular popular in stir-frying lean bitterly types of leafy vegetables like pea shoots or spinach (not gai lan though. I wonder what the reason is?)
If I remember correctly, it is nowhere near as bad as butter in terms of cholesterol. Aside, even butter seems to be undergoing partial rehabilitation because hydrogenated polyunsaturated fat is seemingly the worst guy in the room circa 2010.
sunflower says
I do render chicken, duck and pork fat.
The colour of chicken fat is much golden with cornfed chicken. Gives a great colour to Hainanese chicken rice.
If you mix in a bit of salt before the fat is rendered. The leftover fat meat is crunchy and very tasty.
My mum used to make a dish with big bowl of rendered pork fat meat braised with yellow bean sauce, garlic and chilli. Yum yum. Shame I can't make this over here, it's almost impossible to buy pork fat on its own over here. I have to trim the fat off any any pork joint with attached pork fat in order to use it sparingly for some recipes.
Andrea Nguyen says
@Joel: The fat seems to make gailan greasy tasting. I think it's the round, smooth texture of the vegetable.
@sunflower: Adding salt is a FABULOUS tip for the cracklings. It's hard to buy pork fat in the U.S. too. I go to a Latino market.
Jai says
I never realized that rendered meat fat was used in Asian cuisine. Go figure, nose to tail eating, makes sense. Am I wrong, doesn't it have a low smoking point? And, is it only used for vegetables in S.E. Asia?
fefe says
My mama does this! I thought that she was the only weird person to use chicken skins as oil!
Andrea Nguyen says
@Jai: There are many unsaid things about Asian cooking. Makes sense though, huh?
@Fefe: Our moms are resourceful smarties!
Jamieson says
Yukon Golds fried in duck fat....heaven!
how to mend a broken heart says
Hi, I am agree with your. You have mentioned good point to cook chicken in some different way. Now i will try it by the way you mentioned to cook.
Yvonne says
I like using rendered fat for cooking, the other day i used chicken fat to fry an egg. I think that the rendered fat gets the edges of the fried egg more crispy, which in my opinion is tastier.
Andrea Nguyen says
Yvonne -- Rendered chicken fat to fry an egg: that's like a mother and child reunion!
max says
when i brown my chicken for making brown chicken stock, i take off all the skin and put it on the rack along with the chicken.
the chicken browns and all the fat from the skin falls thru to the bottom of the pan.
and i'm left with brown chicken, a pan full of rendered chicken fat, and chicken skin cracklins... can you guess what i do with those cracklins after i sprinkle them with a little salt?
Andrea Nguyen says
@Max: I get you eat those cracklins like potato chips! Nice idea. Thanks.
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Dave Weinstein says
Check area farmer's markets. You should be able to get fatback and leaf lard.
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Terry Shay says
I recall a TV show from decades ago -- Romper Room -- and on it they had a kids exercise segment that, in the music to it, said "Go you chicken fat, go away. Go you chicken fat go." Well, looks like the song didn't take into account trans fats, which really were not talked about then, or the dreaded margarine. I save every bit of this precious fat, but my favorite is the chicken fat that comes off of smoked chickens after I have roasted one. OMG does it ever make scrambled eggs to die for! I also very finely chop the cracklings and use them as a garnish on the scrambled -- yum!
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